Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro

The Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro (also known as the Festival de Avándaro or simply Avándaro) was a historic Mexican rock festival held on September 11–12, 1971, on the shores of Lake Avándaro near the Avándaro Golf Club, in a hamlet called Tenantongo, near the town of Valle de Bravo in the central State of Mexico. The festival, organized by brothers Eduardo and Alfonso Lopez Negrete's company Promotora Go, McCann Erickson executive and sports promoter Justino Compean and Telesistema Mexicano producer Luis de Llano Macedo, took place at the height of La Onda and celebrated life, youth, ecology, music, peace and free love, has been compared to the American Woodstock festival for its psychedelic music, counterculture imagery and artwork, and open drug use. A milestone in the history of Mexican rock music, the festival has drawn anywhere from an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 concertgoers. The festival originally scheduled 12 bands booked by music impresarios Waldo Tena and Armando Molina Solis' agency, but a total of 18 acts performed outdoors during the first, sometimes rainy weekend, before a massive crowd. The event was captured in film by, among others, Cinematográfica Marco Polo, Telesistema Mexicano, Cablevision and Peliculas Candiani. Audio was captured by Polydor Records and a live radio broadcast was sponsored by The Coca-Cola Company. Images of the festival were captured by professional photographers like Nadine Markova, Graciela Iturbide, Pedro Meyer and others. The Super 8 short films Avándaro produced by Gutiérrez y Prieto of Cablevision and directed by Alfredo Gurrola and Tinta Blanca en Avándaro produced by Raul Candiani of Peliculas Candiani and directed by Humberto Rubalcaba were the only films exclusively about the first festival. They were exhibited at international film festivals and theaters in 1972. Other movies, which partially used footage of the festival, were the Cinematográfica Marco Polo film "La verdadera vocación de Magdalena" produced by Anuar Badin and directed by Jaime Humberto Hermosillo and the Super 8 films "The year of the rat" by Enrique Escalona and "La segunda primera matriz" by Alfredo Gurrola.