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 site for the event was the newly-opened Dallas International Motor Speedway, located on the east side of Interstate Highway 35 E, across from the Round Grove Road intersection.

The festival was the brainchild of Angus G. Wynne III, son of the founder of the Six Flags Amusement Park. Wynne was a concert promoter who had attended the Atlanta International Pop Festival on the July Fourth weekend. He decided to put a festival on near Dallas, and joined with the Atlanta festival's main organizer, Alex Cooley, forming the company Interpop Superfest.

Artists performing at the festival were: Led Zeppelin, B.B. King, Canned Heat, Chicago (then called Chicago Transit Authority), Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, Freddie King, Grand Funk Railroad, Herbie Mann, Incredible String Band, James Cotton, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Nazz, Ramon and Ramon and the Four Daddios, Rotary Connection, Sam and Dave, Santana, Shiva's Headband, Sly and the Family Stone, Space Opera, Spirit, Sweetwater, Ten Years After and Tony Joe White.

North of the festival site was the campground on Lake Lewisville, where hippie attendees skinny-dipped and passed bars of Ivory soap (Ivory floats). Also on the campground was the free stage, where some bands played after their main stage gig and several bands not playing on the mains stage performed. It was on this stage that Wavy Gravy, head of the Hog Farm commune, acquired his name. (At Woodstock, he was Hugh Romney.)

The Merry Pranksters, Ken Kesey's group, was in charge of the free stage and camping area. While Kesey was neither at the Texas event nor at Woodstock, his right hand man, Ken Babbs, and his psychedelic bus, Further (Ferther) were. The Hog Farm provided security, a trip tent and free food.

Attendance at the festival remains unknown, but is estimated at around 150,000. As with Woodstock, there were no violent crimes reported. There was one death, due to heat, and one birth.

External links

* [http://www.texaspopfestival.com Commemorative event website] .
* [http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Makeup/2737/poparticles/articles.htm Reprinted newspaper accounts of the event]
* [http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Makeup/2737/pop.htm First-hand account and photos by festival attendee Paul Johnston]
* [http://www.veoh.com/videos/e99762PeeJCtXK Promotional film]
* [http://electriccollage.com The Electric Collage light show]