Festival events
- David Bowie performed at the Free Festival organized by the Beckenham Arts Lab in Beckenham, London. He later commemorated the event in his song "Memory of a Free Festival".
- On the second day of the Woodstock festival, performances included Santana, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Who, Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane; Carlos Santana performed under the influence of mescaline.
- The third and final day of the Woodstock music festival took place at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. Among the performers were Joe Cocker, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Blood, Sweat & Tears, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Ten Years After, John Sebastian, Sha Na Na, Country Joe and the Fish, The Band, Johnny Winter and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. After the fences and barriers were breached, the organizers announced that the concert would be free.
- During The Who's performance at Woodstock, Pete Townshend pushed activist Abbie Hoffman off the stage after he attempted to make a political statement. Townshend later said that at the time he did not know it was Hoffman.
- Jimi Hendrix closed the Woodstock festival with a morning performance featuring “Hey Joe.” As the festival's headline act, he had originally been scheduled to perform the previous evening, but because the program ran longer than expected, he did not take the stage until Monday morning. His performance included a striking version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
- The Woodstock festival ended with morning performances by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sha Na Na and Jimi Hendrix, who played his version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at 9 a.m. Of the more than 400,000 attendees, only an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 people remained in the mud for Hendrix's closing performance.
- The final day of the three-day Yorkshire Folk, Blues & Jazz Festival took place in Krumlin, Yorkshire, featuring among others The Kinks, Mungo Jerry, Yes, Ginger Baker's Air Force and Edgar Winter.
- Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come, Hawkwind, Duster Bennett, Brewers Droop, Indian Summer, Graphite and Queen performed at the Tregye Festival in Truro, Cornwall, England.
- Ten Years After headlined the final day of the Reading Festival. Also on the bill were Matching Mole, Quintessence, Stackridge, Status Quo, Stray, String Driven Thing, Sutherland Brothers, Vinegar Joe, and Wizzard.
- The Rolling Stones, 10cc, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren's Utopia and Hot Tuna performed at the Knebworth Festival in Hertfordshire, England, before approximately 200,000 fans. Tickets cost £4.50. The concert was falsely promoted as “the last Stones concert ever to take place in Britain” in order to boost ticket sales. RCA also announced that sales of Elvis Presley's recordings had exceeded 400 million units; later estimates by Graceland and Sony put his worldwide sales at more than one billion recordings.
- The first edition of the Monsters of Rock festival took place at Castle Donington in England.
- Iron Maiden, KISS, David Lee Roth, Megadeth, Guns N' Roses and Helloween performed at the Monsters of Rock festival in Castle Donington, England. Despite bad weather before the festival, more than 107,000 people attended. Two rock fans died during Guns N' Roses' performance while slam dancing.
- Woodstock '94 began in Saugerties, New York, as a continuation of the legendary 1969 festival held to mark its 25th anniversary. More than 350,000 fans attended, and heavy rain and mud earned the festival the nickname “Mudstock”. Some original 1969 Woodstock performers also appeared, including The Band, Santana, Joe Cocker, Country Joe McDonald, John Sebastian, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
- Phish held their first weekend festival, The Clifford Ball, in Plattsburgh, New York. The event marked the beginning of the band's tradition of large-scale festivals.
- The ENIT festival, organized by Perry Farrell after his split from Lollapalooza, began in Holmdel, New Jersey, with Porno For Pyros as the headliners. The festival was among the first events to sell tickets online, but only four concerts took place because of poor organization.
- The seventh Lollapalooza tour concluded at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, with Korn, Snoop Dogg and Tool among the main acts. It was the final Lollapalooza tour until 2003.
- The two-day UK V97 festival took place in Chelmsford and Leeds, featuring among others Blur, The Prodigy, Beck, Kula Shaker, Dodgy, Foo Fighters, Placebo, James, Ash and Gene.
- The festival lasted three days and began in Bethel, New York, where Woodstock had originally been held 29 years earlier. Rock veterans Pete Townshend and Stevie Nicks, as well as newer bands Third Eye Blind and The Goo Goo Dolls, took part in the event.
- Richard Ashcroft, Paul Weller, James, Toploader, Barenaked Ladies, Moby, Beth Orton, Joe Strummer, Feeder, Dandy Warhols and Coldplay performed at the V2000 festival in Staffordshire, England.
- Coldplay, Barenaked Ladies, Moby and Cypress Hill performed on the final day of the V2000 festival in Staffordshire, England.
- Alanis Morissette, Nickelback, Elvis Costello, Rihanna and The Chemical Brothers were among the main acts at V Festival 2002 in England.
- Slipknot organized the first Knotfest in Council Bluffs, Iowa, combining live music with amusement park attractions. Deftones and Lamb Of God were among the performers.