The first Atlanta International Pop Festival was a music festival

Music festival

A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines,...

 held at the Atlanta International Raceway

Atlanta Motor Speedway

Atlanta Motor Speedway is a track just outside Hampton, Georgia, twenty miles south of Atlanta. It is a quad-oval track with a seating capacity of over 125,000. It opened in 1960 as a standard oval. In 1994, 46 condominiums were built over the northeastern side of the track...

 on the July Fourth

Independence Day (United States)

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...

 and weekend, 1969, more than a month before Woodstock. It was organized by Alex Cooley, who later went on to organize the Texas International Pop Festival

Texas International Pop Festival

The Texas International Pop Festival was a music festival held at Lewisville, Texas, on Labor Day weekend, August 30-September 1, 1969. It occurred two weeks after Woodstock...

. The crowd numbered in the high tens of thousands, with some estimates as high as 125,000. With temperatures nearing a hundred degrees, local fire departments used fire hoses to create "sprinklers" for the crowd to play in and cool off.