Mar y Sol Festival
| Mar y Sol Pop Festival | |
|---|---|
"The hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do.
It was just very difficult." - Alex Cooley |
|
| Genre | hard rock, blues rock, folk rock, jazz, jazz fusion, progressive rock, and salsa. |
| Dates | scheduled: April 1–3, 1972, but ran over to April 4 |
| Location(s) |
Manatí, Puerto Rico (in those days, that area was mistakenly thought to be part of Vega Baja) |
| Founded by | Alex Cooley |
| Attendance | 35,000 |
| Website | |
| marysol-festival |
|
The Mar y Sol Pop Festival (also referred to as Mar y Sol Festival or simply Mar y Sol - "Sea and Sun") was a rock festival that took place in Manatí, Puerto Rico, about thirty miles west of San Juan, on April 1–4, 1972. It was held on 420 acres (1.7 km2) of countryside adjacent to Los Tubos beach in Manatí on the north shore of the island. An estimated 30-35,000 people attended the festival.
Almost every review by newspapers and magazines condemned the festival as being unsuccessful and uncomfortable. These included Creem, The New York Times as well as local newspapers El Nuevo Día, El Imparcial, El Mundo and The San Juan Star. One exception was New York Times reporter Les Ledbetter who printed a column on April 9 titled "It was a success – ask the people".
Several accidental deaths at the beach and a murder were also damaging to the festival's reputation.
An arrest warrant was issued for promoter Alex Cooley, who avoided arrest by leaving the island before the festival was over.
The planning of the festival started in early 1971. The original name was Fiesta Del Sol (Party of the Sun). There were five promoters, three of them were from the US (Samuel T. Harmon, Robert "Bob" J. Salstrom, and multimillionaire Glenn W. Turner) and the other two were local (basketball player Ray Rivera and Tito Molinary).
The date for the festival was repeatedly postponed due to production problems.
Eventually some of the promoters were able to persuade Alex Cooley (Atlanta International Pop Festival, Texas International Pop Festival and 2nd Atlanta International Pop Festival) to take over production of the festival. The dates were then finalized for April 1–3, 1972, coinciding with Holy Week. This sparked a high volume of criticism by both the government and the press of Puerto Rico."Then the newspapers [from Puerto Rico] got a hold of it and they started just slamming it." said Cooley in a 2006 interview.
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Wikipedia