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Every year in late June, Roxanne Fucci takes in the colorful sights and sounds of the Atlanta Pride Festival at Piedmont Park.

A week or so later, she battles the July 4 heat — and Heart Attack Hill — in the Peachtree Road Race down Atlanta's signature street.

ANDY SHARP / asharp@ajc.com (ENLARGE)
Atlanta Track Club Executive Director Tracey Russell says coordination efforts between Peachtree Road Race organizers and Pride Festival directors have gone well, so there should be no disruption when the two events converge on July 4 at the Civic Center in Midtown.
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RELATED LINKS: • Full Peachtree Road Race coverage • Peachtree Road Race street closings • Guide to the Atlanta Pride Fest

This year, she'll do both on the same day. At the same place..

For the first time ever, two of the city's largest outdoor events — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race and Atlanta Pride — are being held on the same property on the same date. The race will end Friday at Ponce de Leon Avenue and Juniper Street, with closing ceremonies at the Boisfeuillett Jones Atlanta Civic Center. That evening, Atlanta Pride, one of the country's largest gay-themed festivals, kicks off on civic center grounds. Both are usually held at Piedmont Park.

No one quite knows what to expect.

Said Pride organizer Jennifer Sheffield: "It's going to be interesting, that's for sure."

All this is, of course, due to Georgia's epic drought.

In January, the city announced that all Class A festivals — those that attract at least 50,000 people — were being moved out of Piedmont because of the stress on the park's rain-starved lawn.

The Atlanta Dogwood Festival moved to Lenox Square mall April 4-6 and saw a huge drop in attendance. A scaled-down Atlanta Jazz Festival was held May 24-26 at downtown Atlanta's Woodruff Park.

So this weekend is a big test for both events.

"At first I was a little concerned," said Fucci, 44, an Atlanta real estate agent. "But after I looked at the packet the Track Club sent out and looked at the map, I think it'll be fine."

Here's how things should go Friday: The road race wraps up mid-morning, with most runners gone from the civic center by noon. Race organizers figure they can be out of the way by 2 p.m. That leaves four hours before the civic center reopens for Pride.

Pride usually attracts upwards of 200,000 people over its three-day event, which features outdoor concerts and displays like the AIDS Memorial Quilt and a human rights exhibit. This weekend, those events will be housed in the civic center's parking lot, with a VIP party inside the center's auditorium.

Pride weekend culminates with a colorful parade — featuring church groups and drag queens and just about everything in between — Sunday afternoon. As usual, the parade will wind down Peachtree, but this year it will start near Piedmont Park and end at the civic center. It's roughly the same route as year's past, but in reverse.

Officials with the Atlanta Pride Committee and the Atlanta Track Club, which puts on the 55,000-runner race, have been coordinating for months, mounting a massive combined operation. Both groups began setting up on the sprawling property along Piedmont Avenue at 7 a.m. Tuesday. They agreed to use the same rental companies for tents and portable toilets.

"We've had a great working relationship," said Track Club said executive director Tracey Russell. "Most runners are pretty happy we have a race this year and that we are willing to work together to pull it off."

While the unlikely bedfellows say sharing the same space won't be too much trouble, problems are inevitable, said Sheffield, of the Atlanta Pride Committee. "Organizing one Class A event is a major ordeal. You inevitably have people yelling at each other at some point. That's just par for the course," she said. "But we know if that happens, we'll get through it and move on in a professional manner."

Still, both groups have put temporary holds on the civic center for next summer.

"We have to be smart in our planning and don't want to lose that date," Russell said. "We certainly hope things improve with the weather and everything that's going on at Piedmont Park so we can get back there next Fourth of July."