page_title: Lollapalooza
section_title: Success and decline
hierarchical_section_title: Lollapalooza / History / Success and decline
caption_attribution_description: English: Lollapalooza with Chicago Skyline
context_page_description: Lollapalooza is an annual four-day music festival in Chicago, Illinois, at Grant Park, founded in 1991 and since expanded to other countries. Performances include but are not limited to alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock, hip hop, and electronic music. Lollapalooza has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups and various visual artists. The four-day music festival in Chicago's Grant Park hosts an estimated 400,000 people each year and sells out annually. Lollapalooza is considered one of the largest and most iconic music festivals in the world and one of the longest running in the United States. In 2019, its Brazilian edition was the world's third most grossing festival, with revenues of $14.5 million.
  Conceived and created in 1991 by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell as a farewell tour for his band, Lollapalooza ran annually until 1997, and was revived in 2003. From its inception through 1997 and its revival in 2003, the festival toured North America. In 2004, the festival organizers decided to expand the dates to two days per city, but poor ticket sales forced the 2004 tour to be cancelled.
context_section_description: The inaugural edition in 1991 was a surprise massive success. For Dave Grohl of Nirvana who saw it in Los Angeles while mixing Nevermind, the festival helped change the mentalities in the music industry.  The Butthole Surfers opened the day playing in front of a big audience and Siouxsie and the Banshees "were like the Led Zeppelin of that scene". "It felt like something was happening, that was the beginning of it all". That year, Farrell also coined the term "Alternative Nation". The explosion of alternative rock in the early 1990s propelled Lollapalooza forward; the 1992 and 1993 festivals leaned heavily on grunge and alternative acts, and usually featured an additional rap artist. Punk rock standbys like mosh pits and crowd surfing became part of the canon of the concerts. These years saw great increases in the participatory nature of the event with the inclusion of booths for open-microphone readings and oratory, television-smashing pits and tattooing and piercing parlors. After 1991, the festival included a second stage (and, in 1996, a third stage) for up-and-coming bands or local acts. Attendee complaints of the festival included high ticket prices as well as the high cost for food and water at the shows. The festival played at the Alpine Valley festival in East Troy, Wisconsin on August 29, 1992, and also at World Music Theater in Tinley Park, IL (near Chicago), where concertgoers ripped up chunks of sod and grass and threw them at each other and at the bands, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in damages to the venue.
  Grunge band Nirvana was scheduled to headline at the festival in 1994, reportedly being offered nearly $10 million to do it. However, Cobain turned it down, and the band officially dropped out of the festival on April 7, 1994. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's body was discovered in Seattle the next day. Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, made guest appearances at several shows, including the Philadelphia show at FDR Park (usually taking time given to her by The Smashing Pumpkins vocalist/guitarist Billy Corgan), speaking to the crowds about the loss, then singing a minimum of two songs. Farrell worked with rock poster artist Jim Evans (T.A.Z.) to create a series of posters and the complete graphic decoration for the 1994 event, including two 70 foot tall Buddha statues that flanked the main stage.
  In 1996, Farrell, who had been the soul of the festival, decided to focus his energy to produce his new festival project, ENIT, and did not participate in producing Lollapalooza. Many fans saw the addition of Metallica in 1996 as contrary to the festival's prior practice of featuring "non-mainstream" artists, and described the crowds attracted by Metallica as being singularly focused on the headliner without respect for the other performing artists. Moreover, festival cofounder Farrell felt that Metallica's macho image violated his peaceful vision for the festival, for alternative culture of the early 1990s was generally against macho behavior. Farrell quit the tour in protest.
  Responding to the controversial Metallica tour, Lollapalooza made efforts to revive its relevance to audiences. The festival booked eclectic acts such as country superstar Waylon Jennings in 1996, and emphasized heavily electronica groups such as The Orb and The Prodigy in 1997. 1997, however, would prove to be the final tour from the initial series of Lollapalooza tours. The festival failed to find a suitable headliner in 1998, and therefore announced Lollapalooza's cancellation. The cancellation served as a signifier of alternative rock's declining popularity. In light of the festival's troubles that year, Spin said, "Lollapalooza is as comatose as alternative rock right now."
caption: Lollapalooza with the Chicago skyline backdrop.
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