What is the largest ticketed concert in the US?
The Largest Ticketed Concert in US History:
Summer Jam in Watkins Glen Held at Watkins Glen International, in Watkins Glen, New York, the festival—also known as the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen—was a rock performance.
With ticket sales, the July 1973 event—more than 600,000 music-goers crowded into the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Racetrack in New York state—saw as the largest concert in American history attended. One of the biggest rock events of the early 1970s, it was known as the Summer Jam or sometimes the Watkins Glen Festival and lasted just one day during which the most well-known bands of the period played.
The following is the breakdown of the pre-Epic Event marketing strategy and campaigns:
During 1973, rock concerts and festivals were quite popular; in fact, 1973 was the follow-up on the popular concert series of the 1960s such as the Woodstock concert and the Monterey Pop Festival. Having witnessed this kind of popularity, promoters then began to plan huge concert events with many known stars.
Promoters such as Stanley Goldstein and others from New York began to envision a huge rock festival held at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway located in upstate New York. They expected to have an audience of between 100,000 to 150,000 individuals and used groups such as the Allman Brothers Band, Grateful Dead, and The Band as the main attractions.
More so, regarding the fact that more people namely the college students in particular were developing a lot of hype surrounding the festival, it was evident that the attendance was going to go beyond the expected numbers. As it was announced that with barely a month to the event, ticket sales had reached only 150000. Yet as the day for the concert drew nearer, hundreds of people started flocking to the small town of Watkins Glen. Due to congestion, the crowd extended for several miles, and car owners parked their vehicles along the streets within the area and walked, often for several miles to the site of the festival.
By showtime, the raceway was packed with 600000 fans on average and this attendant was beyond the raceway’s maximum capacity of 120000 people. Although it was clear that the concert had transformed into a problem of sheer coordination, there was no way to arrest the process at that time. The bands, as planned, took the stage and performed their sets, those bands becoming part of the record-breaking event of the largest ticketed live music event in the history of the United States.
The Epic Lineup: Queens and Kings of Rock N Roll Are Back
Although Woodstock continues to be more famous as a cultural icon, the Summer Jam featured a lineup of musicians that was second to none in terms of representing rock music’s heavy hitters at the time. The concert lineup included:
The Allman Brothers Band: When these Southern rock pioneers were recording this set they were enjoying the after-effects of the successful live album Eat a Peach. They then performed a 2.5-hour set of blues-influenced songs such as ‘Ramblin’ Man’ and ‘Whipping Post’.
Grateful Dead: Some of the legendary rock and roll bands were performing the band’s hit songs such as ‘Truckin’ as well as ‘Sugar Magnolia.’ They performed for more than three hours before the event had to be closed due to the occurrence of the curfew.
The Band: Never more than two years after having accompanied Bob Dylan and after having released songs that were acclaimed such as “The Weight,” The Band offered a show that is among the best of their career, from which emerged songs that are emblematic of the group such as “Stage Fright” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.”
Consequently, the music of five bands and more than twelve hours flowed throughout, also featuring such recognized bands as Sea Level, formed by two members of the Allman Brothers, New Riders of the Purple Sage, and a young musician named Billy Joel. This was because, unlike most concerts that are often lucky to get two or three top artists, Summer Jam had half that number of the music industry’s top performers.
Trouble in Paradise: Telling an Unfortunate Logistics Story
Summer Jam attracted a crowd of over four times its expected population and this overpopulated the small town with the attendant features such as too many people and too few facilities. Indeed, what is still recalled to this day, with almost equal measure to the great performances were the massive organizational disasters of the festival.
Cars entered the park by being steered into muddy fields; traffic approaching the Watkins Glen site was jammed for 20 miles. Some fans had to spend hours stuck in traffic to cover only a few miles on foot. Car junk was evident at all the major entry points to the town.
Even the actual raceway, designed for crowds of slightly over a hundred thousand, did not have enough space to house the people who had tickets and were present at the event. The fans jumped over fences and the grounds were packed with people to the brim. As for the necessities, only six water fountains and forty portable toilets are provided for the numerous crowds.
Food water medical services were almost a no-show for most of the festival goers who were in attendance. However, the situation worsened and when these fans got sick or dehydrated from the hot August sun, they could not find help since all the local health facilities and other emergency services were fully booked. The situation could have been worse had it rained at the site as this would have affected other construction activities.
In the end, Summer Jam promoters perceived the show as a financial loss or wash due to charges taken to legal suits over unserved tickets, increased security charges, and damages. Despite this, they could not contest that it was historic by attendance size, as well as the quality of the music offered.
The Legacy: Games, records, and championships won, but safety defeated
Concerning this, Watkins Glen International Raceway never again counted on another gigantic rock celebration following the extremity of the problems in 1973. Promoters regretted this reality, as even the best-organized concerts could go to the worst if the demand and turnout of the fans were underestimated.
In this regard, Summer Jam could be seen as the epitome of the huge social extravaganza that was the rock music festival movement in the mid to late 1960s and early 1970s. When later concerts did not attract Watkins Glen ticket sales, large open-air concerts for some time went out of style.
Altamont disaster in 1969 and logistical failures of subsequent events such as Summer Jam also led to the gradual professionalization of crowd management, safety measures, infrastructure, and infrastructures of support in subsequent years around concerts. However, it is also a fact that no amount of precaution can completely minimize the harms that are inherent in Crowds of more than a million people gathered to let their emotions and music idols run wild.
Even to this date, Summer Jam maintains the record of the biggest ticketed concert in the United States of America with over 600,000 people in attendance. It also once held the record of the largest live audience that any musical event in the whole world has ever assembled. Its immense scale and the achievements of its sound personnel enabled fans to listen to good quality from a distance of up to half a mile.
Although the anarchy and disorder interfered with the music at some points, Summer Jam 1973 was a unique meeting of various powers. This was a time when classic rock was emerging as the hippie craze was fading and bands and top bands came together to put up a show of a lifetime. The event was instrumental in showcasing to future concert promoters how certain simple events could either be successful or fail based on crowd mania disregarding rationality. Of course, the most important legacy is and will always remain the highest-ticketed concert in the United States’ history.
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