Newport Pop Festival

Newport Pop Festival

The Newport Pop Festival, held in Costa Mesa, California, August 3–4, 1968, was the first music concert ever to have more than 100,000 paid attendees.

There were two separate events staged in the late 1960s that are commonly referred to as the "Newport Pop Festival." The first was called the Newport Pop Festival, held at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, California, the weekend of August 3–4, 1968. The second event was originally billed as "Newport 69," and was held over the three-day weekend of June 20–22, 1969 in Northridge, California at Devonshire Downs. In published writings over the last 40 years, this latter event has been referred to as the "Newport 69 Pop Festival," the "Newport Pop Festival 1969" and simply the "Newport Pop Festival." Subsequently, much confusion has been created over the years between the 1968 and 1969 events. Some of this confusion was generated by the participating musicians themselves who, later, in their interviews, kept getting the two events mixed up. The latter event was organized by Mark Robinson (age 25) who was one of the three promoters of the original Newport Pop Festival in 1968. The other two promoters of the 68 event were Gary R. Schmidt (age 26) and his father Al Schmidt. Al was not a rock n roller but an entrepreneural business man that helped with the money and licensing. There was a brief law suit between the two Schmidts and Robinson just prior to the "Newport 69" show which the Schmidts had declined to be involved in because of the cost of the acts, The entire band budget for the 68 show was under 50,000 dollars while Robinson paid Jimi Hendrix alone 50,000 dollars for the 69 event. This was an amount of money unheard of at that time for a rock act. The 68 show made money and the 69 show did not. The law suit was over trade names and the last few days before the 69 show the Court ordered that Robinson had to use disclaimers in advertising "not affiliated with the Newport Pop Festival" or he would not have been able to do a "Newport 70". show using that name. A round "hand Bill" flyer the size of a 45RPM record was used to promote the 1968 Costa Mesa show which is included in "The Art of Rock" a publication of 60's and 70's poster art. The round flyer has sold on eBay for as much as 500 dollars.