On December 25-27 1970, a New Age festival known as “The Happening” took place in Laguna canyon, in an area known as Sycamore Flats near El Toro Road. Although it wouldn’t rival Woodstock, the August, 1969 rock and peace festival that became world famous, the Happening aka The Great Happening aka The Christmas Happening, had its own unique impact and was attended by about 25,000 people. The event happened in a more organic way than Woodstock and it paled in size and scope, but the Laguna Happening echoed the same sentiments of peace and free love as its New York brother, and it drew a stream of hippies, peaceniks and potheads, and flower children. It also expanded many minds, thanks in part to LSD that literally rained down from the sky — Orange Sunshine that was thrown out of a passing small airplane. Unfortunately the event drew unwanted attention as well: at 10 a.m. on the Happening’s third day the police, who had been actively seizing drugs at the entrance to the bowl, finally had enough. Over 450 officers moved in and forcibly shut down the event. They then bulldozed the venue. Few recognized it at the time, but an era in Laguna Beach history had just come to an end.
This home movie style footage was shot by filmmaker Roger Wells on a 16mm silent movie camera, and was recently transferred to 4k by Periscope Film. Until now, this footage has never been publicly seen. It is presented here for the first time.
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
