The festival saw rock icon Jimi Hendrix perform before his largest American audience ever and featured the up-and-coming Macon-based Allman Brothers Band.

According to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, the free event was the promoters' way of showing "their appreciation for the overwhelming success of the festival",[9] although Alex Cooley has also described their motivation as simple hippie guilt at making a few-thousand-dollar profit.

[6][12][13][17][18][19][20] Construction crews worked at the festival site for over a month prior to the event's opening day building the main stage, two spotlight towers atop soaring tree-trunk tripods, an eight-foot tall plywood fence surrounding the entire 11.7-acre audience seating area, and other facilities.

[13] Although nudity and drug use were widespread, local law enforcement officials, who knew they were vastly outnumbered, stayed outside the festival gates and employed a general hands-off policy towards most festival-goers during the event's duration.

[12] However, Georgia's colorful governor, Lester Maddox, who had tried repeatedly to prevent the festival from taking place, vowed that he would do whatever it took to block any similar event in the future.

Among the artists billed in various promotional materials and programs but who did not perform at the festival were: Captain Beefheart, Ginger Baker's Air Force, Taos, Jethro Tull, Ravi Shankar, Country Joe and the Fish, Judy Collins, Rotary Connection, and Sly and the Family Stone.

[34] In February 2014, Columbia/Legacy released a 4-CD box set, True to the Blues: The Johnny Winter Story,[35] which features three tracks recorded live at the festival, two of which were previously unreleased.

"[38] On September 15, 2012, a ceremony was held near the site of the second festival to unveil and dedicate an official historical marker commemorating the event.

The marker text reads: "In the 1960s, as American culture changed rapidly, new forms of music and performance emerged, including large outdoor rock festivals.

From July 3–5, 1970, the Second Atlanta International Pop Festival, one of the largest such events anywhere in the world during that era, took place in a field 600 yards west of here.

Over thirty musical acts performed, including rock icon Jimi Hendrix playing to the largest American audience of his career, and Macon's Allman Brothers Band on their launching pad to national fame.

Organized by renowned Atlanta concert promoter Alex Cooley, it remains one of the largest public gatherings in state history.