I felt compelled to write something in this thread because early in this summer I had attended a similar recreation of "Summer of Love" event in Toronto complete with the original artists from that era and a cat-walk demostrating the popular fashion of that era as well as the modern-day version of the fashion from that ear. I absolutely loved the event and here is one of the pics I took from that event http://flickr.com/photos/clairvoyant/537931978/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The organizers of Summer of Love ( of 1967 ) had neither intended for nor anticipated the ith artists massive flow of young ppl to the San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district from across North America and naturally the organizers were neither prepared nor were able to handle and manage such a huge crowd. Apart from this fact, many of these young ppl who came to San Francisco that summer had no intention to seriously follow or at least experiment with the ideals of Hippie sub-culture. Many of them were young teenagers just looking for ways to entertain themselves during the school break, some were just 'runaways' from their parents and some had gotten there purely in hope of getting easy access to drugs mainly marijuana and LSD, some had gotten there because they were just curious and the idea of Hippie seemed cool while others had their own reasons to get there. Actually the things got so bad at some point that the original organizers of the Summer of Love had to beg these new arrivals to go back to where had come from and told these ppl to enjoy themselves at their hometowns. Some of the very distressed organizers left San Francisco all together and began residing at places away from the city where ppl wouldnt bother them. The very utopia (or the ideal world) that the original Hippies had hoped to create in the Summer of Love had somehow been destroyed by this massive unanticipated influx of young people from all over North America. In one way the Summer of Love was a huge failure and most young people realized that it is very hard to sustain such lifestyle en masses. However it enspired many of the popular mass social and cultural movements that about to follow in the following decades which today has more or less become a part of mainstream social culture. Enviroment conservation movement that followed in the 1970s and thereafter is a great example. Hippies have always been notoriously nicknamed "tree huggers." Canadian Robert Hunter is one of the origianl founders of Green Peace had covered counter-culture movement in 1960s as a journalist. Founded in 1971, in Vancouver, Canada Green Peace went on to become global independent enviroment conservation movement. Living in peace and harmony with all living creature of this world is one the fendamental aspect Hippie doctrine. When combined with the rebellious attitude towards the established social and cultural norms and the authority (which is also another aspect of Hippie culture) an another mass social movement was born which today is known as 'Peace Movement' or 'Anti-War' movement. Which eventually forced the United States government to pull itself out of Vietnam War. Eventhough the Hippie counter-culture itself was not directly responsible for "Anti-War" movement it surely had taught the young ppl of the day to rebel and look for ways to attain peaceful co-existance with the world. Hippies are probably the first large group of ppl from the western world to abandon the classic Christanity which their parents had held so dear to and look towards eastern religions for spiritual quest . Eastern religions suddely became a subject of interest among more than just Hippies. Influence on music: The sub-genre acid rock or Psychedelic rock itself was largely born at the height of Hippie movement around mid 1960s. Psychedelic rock is very often described as a recreation of mental experience during hallucinations induced by drugs mainly marijuana and LSD which has always been associated with Hippies. Taking the rebillious attitude as an inspiration, many of young ppl of the day started making their own stands on issues ranging from abortion to woman's rights to individual freedoms which were unimaginably different from their parents' generation. From a narrow prespective, the Summer of Love of 1967 event itself was failure but when looked from a broad prespective it was a big success. Who would have ever imagined then that people would still want to recreate Summer of Love 40 years later. Who would have imagined that many of the ideals they dreamed of would be integrated into the social mainstream to a varying degree.