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Maybe the first modern music festival was organized in Frankenhausen, Thuringia, Germany, 20-21 June, 1810 by the town Cantor, Georg Friedrich Bischoff (1780- 1841). He advertised in regional newspapers for musicians and audiences: 106 musicians from courts as far away as Leipzig and a choir of 96 who took up rooms in local inns while the instrumentalists were lodged in a "homestay" arrangement. The orchestra had only time for one rehearsal, but it was enough. At 3 pm on the 20th the festival opened with Haydn's oratory "The Creation" in a sold out Unterkirche. The festival ended in the evening of the 21st with a Beethoven symphony in C.
Bischoff became Cantor of Frankenhausen in 1802 and immediately began producing biweekly public concerts and later on full day concerts with classic and new music. But the festival in 1810 was the first multi-day event. More festivals followed, bigger and bigger, some with over 1,000 musicians and singers, until October 1815. Bischoff's last festival was a financial disaster: Frankenhausen was right in the path of the returning Russian army (after its occupation of Paris 1814) and audiences weren't able to use the roads packed with many thousands of Russians soldiers.
Bischoff ended up moving to Hildesheim and the idea of music festivals spread across Germany and the rest of Europe.