It was 50 years ago on July 3, 1970, that the 2nd Atlanta International Pop Festival began. Like the Woodstock festival the previous summer, the event was promoted as "Three days of peace, love and music." Tickets for the festival were priced at $14. Also like Woodstock, it became an "open event" when the promoter threw open the gates after crowds outside began to tear down the plywood fence that had been erected around the site. An estimated 350,000 and possibly as many as 600,000 people attended.
Some of the performers included The Allman Brothers, Terry Reid, BB King, Procol Harum, Jimi Hendrix, The Chambers Brothers, Poco, Grand Funk Railroad, Ravi Shankar, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter, John Sebastian, Mountain, Bloodrock, and Spirit. Jimi Hendrix played to the largest American audience of his career, presenting his rendition of the Star Spangled Banner for the fireworks around midnight on the Fourth of July.