The festival is held 68 kilometres (42 mi) east of Amsterdam in Biddinghuizen, at Spijk en Bremerberg, which is adjacent to Walibi Holland.

Although the main focus is on music - rock, pop, dance, hip hop and alternative - Lowlands also offers indoor and outdoor cinema, (street) theatre, cabaret and stand-up, ballet, literature and comic strips.

In recent years, the festival is attended by around 55,000 visitors, and features over 200 acts on more than ten stages every year which are named according to the NATO phonetic alphabet apart from the Heineken stage (named after the beer brewer Heineken, the main sponsor of the festival since 2015).

The majority of stages are inside large tents to protect spectators against inclement weather, with the largest being approximately the size of a regulation football pitch.

This 18-hour-long event had no top acts but included experimental theatre, dancing, poetry, films, body painting and massage.

On 28 December 1968, this festival was held a second time, postponed by a month from its original date of 23 November in an attempt to get Jimi Hendrix to attend the event.

In the end, the show was sold out to its capacity of 18,000 visitors, though many attendees were unable to get inside resulting in unrest and police intervention.

This was partly possible because Lowlands is programmed in the same weekend as Pukkelpop (Belgium) and Reading (Great Britain), so the big American rock bands didn't have to come across for only one performance.

Amsterdam hip hop group Osdorp Posse had their performance early Saturday evening in the Charlie tent.

[4] In 1996 Lowlands becomes a big 'crossover' festival, showcasing many different types of genres like pop, rock, grunge, dance, house, hiphop and a lot in between.

Instead of only fries and burgers, people can choose from Mexican, Spanish, Italian and Surinam cuisine, and even a separate stand for vegetarians.

[5] In 1997 gabber is very popular and Lowlands decided to make place for Dj Dano, however, he quickly got beer thrown at him and stopped his performance in the Alpha early.

Also, for the first time ever, Lowlands stopped using the NATO phonetic alphabet for tent names to give priority to commercial parties.

On Friday evening, many people headed to the Alpha stage to see the Beastie Boys with their worldwide hit song Intergalactic.

[7] In 1999 Lowlands reaches a state which shows many things at the terrain will remain the same for years ahead, because of maximum use of capacity.

The Dommelsch becomes an outdoor cinema after 23.00 and the night programming becomes more important as in almost all tents dj's and parties keep going on till late.

[8][9] The ninth edition of Lowlands in 2000 starts with a minute of silence and a strict crowd-surfing prohibition because of the Roskilde incident, at which 9 people died at a Pearl Jam performance.

[12] In 2003, festival director Eric van Eerdenburg takes measures because Lowlands 2002 was too crowded and had a for many people disappointing line-up.

[13] A running gag takes over entire Lowlands in 2004: a year earlier, a boy named Theo Vlaar stepped out of the line at the entrance to pee, but upon his return, he lost his friends.

[14][15] In 2005 Lowlands is doing better and makes good progress, also because the festival was shifted a week forward, from the last to the third weekend of August, because there are then more major international acts nearby.

The Bravo tent is moved to make room for something new: the Titty Twïster, a strip club with literature at day and striptease performers at night.

[22] In January 2013, booking office Friendly Fire, a competitor of Lowlands organiser Mojo, announces a new three-day music festival called Best Kept Secret.

The first four names - Arctic Monkeys, Portishead, Alt-J and Sigur Rós - show that Lowlands is no longer the only place for Indie music.

On the Monday after the festival the message follows that an Amsterdam visitor who was found in a comatose state on a remote part of the grounds during the first night, later died in hospital.

Another explanation for the declining interest in that group may be that Lowlands organizer Mojo was setting up a new festival called Down the Rabbit Hole, a cuddlier version with more attention for alternative music.

The third beer supplier in Lowlands history makes its appearance: after Dommelsch (1993–2003) and Grolsch (2004–2014) the organisation now signs a contract with Heineken.