The Texas International Pop Festival 
Posters & Program

Early Promotional Poster  /  Second Promotional Poster  /  Watercolor Poster  /  Program / Phony Poster

The Posters:
Okay, here's the scoop on the posters:

As you may know, Angus Wynne III decided he wanted to organize a pop festival when he went to the first Atlanta festival, which was organized mainly by Alex Cooley. He convinced Alex to help him, so they started the company known as International Pop Festivals, Inc., or Interpop Superfest. Alex had commissioned an Atlanta artist named Lance Bragg to design the promotional poster for Atlanta as well as a poster that was sold at the festival (although more of them were used to cover mud for people to walk on than were sold). Lance was once again hired to design a poster for the Texas festival.

The First Poster:
The design was basically the same as the Atlanta poster, with a hand holding a peace sign, surrounded by a wreath. The Texas version had a light orange background with blue and red copy and darker orange banners to either side with the bands listed on them. This first poster was already circulated when more bands were added.

This initial promotional poster had listed one band that had cancelled. The story is that Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, after being disappointed in the way they sounded at Woodstock, two weeks earlier, decided to cancel all their engagements to get more practice. Two bands’ names were misspelled. Incredible String Band was spelled with “Inceible” and Led Zeppelin was spelled with “Zepplin.”

The poster read as follows:

Top Center: “Texas International Pop Festival” (followed by “In Person”)

Bands Listed on Left Banners: “B.B. King; Canned Heat; Chicago Transit Authority; Crosby Stills; Nash & Young; Delaney Bonnie Friends (no ampersands); Freddie King; Herbie Mann; Increible String Band; Led Zepplin (both misspelled).”
Bands Listed on Right Banners: “Nazz; Janis Joplin; Rotary Connection; Sam & Dave; Sly & the Family Stone; Spirit; Ten Years After; Tony Joe White; Extra special guest attraction!!!”

Across the Bottom: “Free Camping (very near by); Labor Day Weekend;  Aug. 30-31 & Sept. 1; Festival Field at Dallas International Motor Speedway; Round Grove Exit on I-35 East 12 miles north of Dallas; Sound by Handley; Lights by Electric Collage; Tickets now available at all Preston Ticket locations- for advance tickets send money order or cashier’s check with self addressed stamped envelope to Pop Tickets P.O. Box 2051 Dallas, Texas 75221- make payable to “Pop Tickets; No Later than August 25; Ticket prices: $600 (meaning $6.00) per day advance…..$7.00 at gate / special 3-day advance booklet- $18.00; Tickets available in Dallas at Coghill-Simmons (both locations) & Preston Record Center, Neiman Marcus (downtown), Minsky’s Music, Preston Ticket Agency; Shows start 4pm daily”

The Second Poster:
Once the list of bands was at least almost finalized, another version of the poster was released. This one had a yellow background with blue and white copy. The graphics all changed, though there were still banners with the bands listed on them, although the banners now faded from white to orange and were shaped differently, and the hand in the wreath still adorned the center of the art. Fact is, this design reverted back to being almost an identical to the 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival poster, probably for expediency's sake.

While “Zeppelin” and “Incredible” were now spelled correctly, Freddie King’s name, which had been spelled right on the first poster, was now spelled “Freddy.” Bands added to this poster were  James Cotton Blues Band, Johnny Winter, Santana, Spirit and Sweetwater. Still left off were Grand Funk Railroad and Shiva’s Headband.

This is the most well-known of the banners and is the one that adorns the starting page of the website.

The second poster reads as follows:

Top Center: “Texas International Pop Festival” (followed by “In Person”)

Arched, coming from the sunrays emitted by a sun behind the fingers that make the peace sign and flanked by a zeppelin and a biplane it reads:
“The whole world is waiting for this”

Bands Listed on Left Banners: “In person!; B. B. King; Canned Heat; Chicago Transit Authority; Delaney & Bonnie & Friends (now with ampersands); Freddy King (now misspelled); Herbie Mann; Incredible String Band; James Cotton Blues Band; Janis Joplin; Johnny Winter.”
Bands Listed on Right Banners: “ In person!; Led Zeppelin; Nazz; Rotary Connection; Sam & Dave; Santana; Sly & the Family Stone; Spirit; Sweetwater; Ten Years After; Tony Joe White”

Across the Bottom: “Labor Day Weekend; Aug. 30-31; Sept. 1; Free camping area; Sound by Hanley; Lights by Electric Collage; Dallas International Speedway; 12 miles north of Dallas on I-35 east; $6.00 per day advance- $7.00 at gate- 3 day adv. book- $18.00; Make checks payable to “Pop Tickets”- P.O. Box 2051, Dallas Texas 75221; 1969 ® International Pop Festivals, Inc. 1447 Peachtree St. Atl. GA. / All programs subject to change without notice”

You may have noticed that the first poster did not, while the second poster did have the bands correctly listed in alphabetical order by first name. Janis Joplin’s was the one name out of place on the initial poster.

The Watercolor Poster:
There was a third poster, one that was sold on site at the festival. This one utilized the same watercolor art by Texas artist, Tom Bailey, as the program that was sold at the festival. It features a face in the center with long hair and a mustache flanked on either side by mirror images (or ink blot images might better describe the effect achieved using the watercolor wash) of a bearded guy with an afro seemingly playing a guitar and another bearded guy with a hat below the other. The painting was done in rather earthy burgundy and brown with touches of bluish grey, purple, pink and gold. Below the art, which was sized more for a square program than a vertical, rectangular poster, there is a white background with very plain, small, Helvetica text, all the same size.

This poster reads (stacked down the center):

"TEXAS INTERNATIONAL POP FESTIVAL PRESENTS
CANNED HEAT
JOHNNY WINTER
CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY
JAMES COTTON BLUES BAND
JANIS JOPLIN
B. B. KING
HERBIE MANN
ROTARY CONNECTION
SAM & DAVE
DELANEY & BONNIE & FRIENDS
INCREDIBLE STRING BAND
LED ZEPPELIN
SANTANA
TEN YEARS AFTER
NAZZ
SWEETWATER
SLY & THE FAMILY STONE
SPIRIT
TONY JOE WHITE
GRAND FUNK RAILWAY
FREDDY KING”

At the bottom left, it reads:
“© National Graphics Inc.”

At the bottom right it reads:
Illustration by Tom Bailey”

Okay, so they got Grand Funk Railroad wrong. They were even introduced on stage as “Railway.” At least they got them on this one. Freddie’s name is again misspelled. Shiva’s Headband still isn’t listed, but they weren’t expected to play on the main stage. They’d been lined up as a free stage act, but were brought in at the last minute to get things started one day.

Of the three posters, the third is most likely the most rare and valuable. The reason is the story behind the poster. Pete Gent and Bob Hayes (yes, the Dallas Cowboys players- you may remember that Bob “Bullet” Hayes was called the “fastest man alive” and, indeed, had won gold in the Olympics prior to becoming the starting running back for the Cowboys, while Pete Gent, wide receiver, has become more famous for his book, made movie entitled “North Dallas Forty”) wanted to get into the printing business. Since professional football team didn't pay the enormous salaries they do today, they didn't have the money; but in those days, it was easy to borrow on your name; so they went into printing.

While both of them were out of town, one of the employees decided he could print up some posters to sell at the festival. Using the Tom Bailey watercolor design from the program cover, they printed a whole pallet of posters that made its way to the festival. Not many posters sold, and, except for a few posters that Pete Gent took home, most of which he says his ex-wife later burned, the unsold posters remained outside on the pallet through a summer rain, ruining the lot. Hence, they're much more rare than the promotional posters.

Some time around the early 1990’s, a guy named Mike Stockton, who had been to the festival, decided to have a “limited edition” of 2,500 reproductions made of the second promotional poster. With Angus Wynne's permission, he had half that amount printed, then flew to Atlanta to have Lance Bragg sign them and number them, and they sold for over a hundred dollars each. Only 450 got signed, making them rare and, some will argue, more valuable than the originals. 

The amount one might pay on the Internet, mainly eBay, for any of the posters, depending on the condition and how many people notice the auction, can range from $75 (rarely) to $375 (more likely) and over. I’ve seen them go for much higher to uneducated or determined (and, I assume, wealthy) bidders. Always be sure, if it’s the yellow, second promotional poster that is for sale, to make sure that the seller knows for certain that the poster is not one of the reproductions. The best way to tell is that the reproduction posters have a white edge. That makes the yellow area about 3/8” less than 18”x 24”, which is what all three posters are. I mention that because someone could trim the white off the edge. If they did, the poster would no longer be that size. Also, the addition of the white around the edge made the graphics slightly smaller.  On an original poster, if you measure near the top from the left of the OUTSIDE border (that’s the bolder border that has rounded corners) to the right of that border, it is 22” wide. On the reproduction, it is only 21 ¾”. Be sure to measure it near the top but before the roundness begins.

 
The Program:

The program that was sold at the festival bore the watercolor artwork of Tom Bailey. (For a description of the art, see "Watercolor Poster" above.) Consisting of twenty-four pages (including cover), the program has a color cover, but the inside is black and white. 

The front and back, though there is no real way to distinguish between the two, both have the same art. From each side to the middle pages will read normally from front to center, but if you turn the page after the center pages, you'll find everything is upside down. That's because the cover on the other side is the front as well. You can start from either side and it will read as if that is the front. Once you open the program to the center pages, there is a two-page drawing of a big "69." Of course, that was the year of the festival, but the trick is that it reads "69" whether you got there from one front or the other. To browse through the program page by page, go to our Program page.

Included in the three CD box set (see recordings info page), there is a full size reproduction of the program. Also, the other CDs by Oh Boy have miniature replicas of the program for the front insert although the cover art has been colored differently for each artist with that artist's name across the art. 

If you are considering bidding on a program, be sure it isn't the reproduction from the box set. If it is a reproduction, even the seller may not be aware of the fact. Sometimes the seller has had the program since the seventies or even since the festival. In that case, they'll know it's an original. Determining authenticity is a bit more difficult with the program than in the case of the poster since both original and reproduction programs are the exact same size. The paper is of heavier stock on the original, but if you don't have them both, that's difficult to compare. The lighter weight paper of the inside pages is easier to see through, so you can usually see the printing on the next page more clearly on a reproduction. Don't rely on the condition of the program. A reproduction could have been abused and just as stained and tattered as an original. On the other hand, an original may have been kept safe and be in pristine condition. 

I've seen programs go for as little as seventy-five dollars (rarely) and for over three times that (more likely). Condition plays a big part in that. Once you get it, keep it in a good container. Turning pages frequently, even if you're careful, wears a program out. Lying around, it will get bumped, bent and lose its value.

 (Click here to see the program page by page)

Note: Do not buy this poster:

It's fake! There was never a poster like this.
These people print up posters just like this
for Woodstock, Monterey and every other
festival or event. It's a rip-off!!!!