Lolla...what?

With editions in seven countries, Lollapalooza (commonly known simply as Lolla) is possibly the most popular music festival brand in the world. Like it or not, it would be hard to find someone who has not yet heard of a festival now turned into a profitable franchise. But, when it comes to the name, do we know why it is called like that? Here is a brief history of the festival and the origins of the name!

Inspired by events such as Britain's Reading Festival, Ted Gardner, Don Muller, Marc Geiger and Perry Farrell conceived the festival in 1991 as a farewell for Farrell's band Jane's Addiction. The festival ran annually until 1997, and 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.

Perry Farrell performing with Jane´s Addiction. Photo by Matias Altbach

In 2005, Farrell partnered with Capital Sports & Entertainment (now C3 Presents), which co-owns and produces the Austin City Limits Music Festival, to produce Lollapalooza and redesigned it into its current format as a weekend destination festival, instead of touring, and decided it would take place in the Grant Park in Chicago. Starting by then a successful period that continues today. In 2014, Live Nation Entertainment bought a controlling interest in C3 Presents.

In 2010 it was announced that Lollapalooza would debut outside the United States, with a branch of the festival staged in Santiago (Chile). One year after, the company Geo Events confirmed the Brazilian version of the event, to be held in São Paulo in 2012. In 2013, an already announced Summer edition at Tel Aviv's Yarkon Park (Israel) was cancelled due to trouble drawing top talent amid the always-delicate political situation in the Mideast and faced financial and production challenges. At the same time, Buenos Aires (Argentina) was selected as the third Lollapalooza in South America, starting on April 2014, and in November 2014, the first European Lollapalooza was announced, which was held at the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin (Germany) - nowadays it takes place at the impressive location of Olympiastadion & Olympiapark Berlin -. Then there would be new editions in Paris (France) in 2017 and Stockholm (Sweden) in 2019.

Going back to the main topic and to finish this article, according to the etymology the noun Lollapalooza means “an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance” and the first record of this funny word is from 1896. The term was a discovery by Farrell who heard the word while seeing a Three Stooges film and immediately fell in love with it and its double meaning. In addition to that, in time the term also came to refer to a large lollipop and if we pay attention, we can see a character holding a lollipop in the festival’s original logo as well as in every edition graphic imaginary.

Coming editions of the festival will take place in Stockholm (June 28, 29 and 30); in Paris (July 21 and 22); in Chicago (August 1, 2, 3, and 4) and in Berlin (September 7 and 8).