Live Nation, Inc., is one of the largest owners and operators of venues for live entertainment in the world. Since its founding in 1997 the company has acquired many of the largest concert promotion companies in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

It promotes or stages about 30,000 events a year attracting around 60 million attendees. Approximately 90 percent of revenues come from this area.

Lollapalooza is investing in more than just quality tunes this year. For the first time, the Chicago music festival will be offering festivalgoers wearable tech that can be linked to credit and debit card information. These wrist bands, which will be sent to attendees in the weeks preceding the festival’s start, use basic radio frequency identification (RFID).

This form of wearable payment will allow patrons to pay for food and drinks without having to carry cash or swipe their plastic.Those attending the festival will be asked to enter their credit card information prior to the festival’s first weekend and during the weekend vendors will have pay pads on which users can tap their bracelets and enter a pin number.

Last year’s South by Southwest festival featured Lightwave technology that enabled lasers and special effects. One of the Lightwave  perks of the weekend was a wristband that measured audience interaction in real time. The bands measured audience members’ biometrics by tracking them with motion, volume and temperature sensors. Sponsored by a partnership with Pepsi, Lightwave bands were linked to user’s individual accounts and audience interaction was ranked on a screen at the front of the room. Certain levels of dance interaction “unlocked” rewards, such as Pepsi refreshments.

On June 10th and 11th, 1967 — one week before the Monterey Pop Festival and two years before Woodstock — tens of thousands of Bay Area music fans converged on the Sydney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California, for the first U.S. rock festival.

Conceived as a promotion for the KFRC 610 AM radio station, the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival featured more than 30 acts, including the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds and Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, as well as a group of Hells Angels and an "acid doctor" to mitigate bad trips.

Chris Darrow (Kaleidoscope): KFRC were very understanding of what was happening and they went out of their way to play new and cool music. This was an extension of the Love-In in Los Angeles and the Be-In. We'd show up to a park and there'd be bands playing all day long. Everyone just showed up to these things and played for free.