Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)
For 25 years, Austin City Limits Music Festival has turned Zilker Park into something much larger than a collection of concert stages. Inspired by the long-running Austin City Limits television program and launched in 2002, the festival has grown into one of the country's major music weekends, now spread across two three-day weekends in the center of Austin. More than 100 performances fill nine stages, and the festival says roughly 75,000 people can pass through the park on a single day. Despite that scale, ACL has retained enough of its Austin identity to feel different from a festival that could simply be packed up and dropped into another city.
The music remains the reason most people arrive, but a full day at ACL has long involved much more than moving from one stage to another. ACL Eats brings local restaurants and food vendors into the park, while art, merchandise, photo installations, sponsor activations and shaded areas fill the spaces between stages. Austin Kiddie Limits gives families with younger children their own corner of the festival, while Bonus Tracks expands the schedule beyond conventional concerts. The grounds also included places such as The Big Shade, The Big Chiller, The Big Tent, The Grove and Y'all Mart, giving people reasons to slow down instead of spending 10 straight hours fighting for a position near a stage.
That mixture of huge crowds and family tradition remains one of ACL's more endearing qualities. Children wearing hearing protection ride on shoulders next to teenagers seeing their first festival and adults who have been making the October trip to Zilker Park for years. There is an entire generation in Austin for whom ACL is now part of the calendar rather than simply another concert. The festival may change stages, sponsors and artists, but the ritual around it has become remarkably familiar.
Weekend Two also served as a reminder that no two ACL weekends are necessarily identical. The biggest change at the top of the lineup was Kings of Leon, who replaced Weekend One-only headliner Skrillex on Friday. The second weekend also brought exclusive appearances from artists including Sienna Spiro, Natasha Bedingfield, Houndmouth, Bella Kay, Łaszewo, Ethan Regan, Charlotte Lawrence and Bad Nerves, along with a substantial group of emerging and local performers such as Common People, lluvii, Montclair and Almost Heaven. For people who attend both weekends, those changes are enough to keep the second trip through the gates from feeling like a replay.
The weather made the distinction even more obvious. Weekend One became "MudFest" after rain soaked Zilker Park, leaving portions of the Great Lawn difficult to navigate and delaying Saturday's opening. Weekend Two brought something much closer to the traditional ACL experience: bright sun, temperatures around 90 degrees and plenty of dust. Sections of the damaged grounds had been covered with artificial turf and protective pathways to make traffic through the park easier. Before even reaching the entrance, sunscreen was already mixing with sweat and finding its way into eyes, but once inside the shaded approach and occasional breeze offered some relief. It was hot, uncomfortable and completely familiar.
Few moments capture the anticipation of an ACL morning better than the music that plays as the festival comes to life. Hearing Star Wars music and watching people suddenly take off toward the stages has an almost childlike quality to it, no matter how many festivals someone has attended. Some are racing toward barricades they hope to occupy for hours, others are simply caught up in the excitement. Years from now, it would not be surprising if hearing that music somewhere else sends former festival kids straight back to memories of running across Zilker Park with their friends.
The three days of Weekend Two offered distinctly different finales. Friday ended with Kings of Leon on the T-Mobile Stage and Charli xcx on the American Express Stage. Saturday paired Lorde with RÜFÜS DU SOL, while Sunday closed the entire festival with The xx and Twenty One Pilots at opposite ends of the park. Those choices are part of ACL's appeal and occasionally its frustration. It is impossible to see everything, and that is exactly why people leave already thinking about coming back. The best ACL weekends are not remembered as a checklist of completed sets. They become a collection of discoveries, missed opportunities, long walks, unexpected guests, familiar songs, tired legs and moments that could only have happened in that particular field on that particular weekend.
Saturday brought an almost cloudless sky and some of the toughest heat of the weekend. Shade became valuable real estate as the afternoon progressed, and even people accustomed to October festivals in Austin could feel the difference from the cool, wet conditions of Weekend One. It was the sort of day when walking from one end of Zilker Park to the other became part of the endurance test, but the schedule offered enough variety that staying in one corner of the grounds for very long was difficult.
Music was not the only competition occupying people's attention. No. 1 Texas was playing rival Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry at the same time the festival was underway. The game remained close into the final seconds before Oklahoma kicked a 47-yard field goal to win 27-24, handing Texas its first loss of the season. Phones, television screens and conversations around the grounds carried the result into ACL, providing an unusual bit of Saturday tension between sets.
The festival continued to find ways to use its smaller spaces creatively. The newly named BeatBox Stage area included an activation where guests could try a frisbee toss for friendship bracelets and a chance at limited backstage access, with space kept deliberately small. It was a minor detail compared with the enormous headline fields, but those smaller discoveries are part of what keeps ACL interesting after the basic stage layout has become familiar.
One of the day's best surprises came on the BMI Stage, where Common People were joined by Matt Shultz of Cage the Elephant. Together they performed Gouge Away by Pixies, turning an afternoon set from an emerging band into one of those festival collaborations that could not be predicted simply by studying the schedule. Elsewhere, Paris Paloma drew an intense response to Labour, with the song's words being chanted back across the crowd rather than treated as background to another afternoon performance.
Saturday ultimately belonged to two very different headliners, but Lorde's return carried particular history. She first played ACL in 2014 during the Pure Heroine Tour, near the beginning of a career that was still taking shape. More than a decade later, she returned with material stretching from Pure Heroine through Virgin. At one point she told the crowd, "for as long as you have me, I'll keep writing, I'll keep singing," a line that took on additional weight during a set filled with reminders of how young she was when many of those songs first entered people's lives.
That passage of time became especially visible during Liability, as images of a younger Lorde were projected across the performance and she became emotional enough to ask the crowd for help singing. Later, a large banner carrying the words "I DONT BELONG TO ANYONE," a lyric from David, moved above hundreds of raised hands. People underneath were able to add their own writing to the fabric, turning the banner into something communal rather than simply another stage prop. Across the park, RÜFÜS DU SOL offered a completely different way to finish Saturday, leaving another classic ACL dilemma for anyone wishing they could somehow be at both ends of Zilker Park at once.
Macy Todd
Macy Todd performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Singer-songwriter Macy Todd opened Saturday on the BMI Stage with a roots-influenced sound built around a warm, lived-in voice and direct storytelling. Her music sits between country, folk and pop without pushing too hard toward any one of them, giving songs such as "so ruthless" and "luckiest girl alive" a conversational quality that fits the personal writing. Todd arrived at ACL during a busy stretch that included new music and an expanding touring schedule. "luckiest girl alive" grew from the realization that some of the things she once desperately wanted never happened, yet life turned out better in unexpected ways. That balance between disappointment, humor and gratitude has become an important part of her songwriting as her audience continues to grow.
Night Tapes
Night Tapes performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)London-based trio Night Tapes brought an atmospheric start to the T-Mobile Stage, mixing dream pop with ambient electronics, shoegaze textures and darker rhythmic elements. Iiris Vesik, Max Doohan and Sam Richards originally began making music together during late-night sessions while sharing a house, a habit that ultimately provided the band with its name. Their music has gradually expanded from those intimate recordings into a more immersive live sound, with the song "drifting" helping introduce the trio to a much larger international audience. The debut album portals//polarities extends that approach through layered production and field recordings collected in different parts of the world, making Night Tapes one of Saturday's more atmospheric alternatives to the festival's louder afternoon sets.
Annie DiRusso
Annie DiRusso performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)New York-born, Nashville-based Annie DiRusso has built her version of indie rock around distorted guitars, sharp pop hooks and writing that is willing to be funny and uncomfortable at the same time. Years of touring with artists including HAIM, Samia, Declan McKenna, beabadoobee and Peach Pit helped turn an initially independent career into one capable of filling larger rooms and festival stages. Her debut album Super Pedestrian expanded that sound while focusing on relationships, growing up and learning to take control of her own life. The title came partly from DiRusso's habit of walking because she does not drive, but it also became a larger metaphor for getting herself where she wants to go rather than remaining a passenger. Her early afternoon American Express Stage set brought that mix of garage-rock energy and melodic songwriting to one of ACL's largest stages.
Temper City
Temper City performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Temper City is a Los Angeles-based Israeli alternative rock group that arrived at ACL during a remarkably fast rise. The band formed several years earlier among musicians who had already worked as songwriters and producers, but its public breakthrough came with the release of "Self Aware," a moody guitar-driven track that quickly spread online. The group's sound draws from the darker side of modern alternative rock, combining prominent bass and guitar with melodies that remain accessible beneath the tension. Playing the Miller Lite Stage early Saturday gave Temper City a chance to translate a young recording career into the much larger environment of ACL, where viral recognition has to compete with the immediate demands of a live festival set.
Dámaris Bójor
Dámaris Bójor performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Hermosillo singer-songwriter Dámaris Bójor has given her music its own name: "folkpirano." The style combines contemporary folk and country influences with campirano music from Sonora, using guitar, twelve-string guitar, bass, harmonica and regional instrumentation to tell stories tied closely to landscape, identity and everyday life in northern Mexico. Her album Folkpirana developed that idea across songs including "Yécora," "No es normal," "Nube de paso" and "Sonora." Bójor's music can sound familiar to listeners from either side of the border without fitting neatly into conventional American folk or regional Mexican categories. Her BMI Stage appearance brought one of Saturday's most distinctive combinations of musical traditions to Zilker Park.
Gabriel Jacoby
Gabriel Jacoby performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)South Carolina-born Gabriel Jacoby works across R&B, soul and alternative music while bringing elements of hip-hop, blues, folk and country into the same songs. He is more than a vocalist, handling instruments, production, mixing and mastering as part of a hands-on approach that gives his recordings a strong sense of personal identity. That wide musical vocabulary makes Jacoby difficult to place in a single category, particularly as soulful vocals move over arrangements that can shift between funkier rhythms and more introspective passages. His Saturday set on the Snapchat Stage placed that flexibility in the middle of an ACL schedule moving rapidly between indie rock, Latin music, pop and electronic performers.
Balu Brigada
Balu Brigada performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)New Zealand brothers Henry and Pierre Beasley lead Balu Brigada, an alternative pop project built around bright melodies, layered production and the pair's ability to move between instruments. The group began in Auckland with a larger lineup before eventually evolving around the two brothers, who took greater control of the songwriting and production themselves. The single "So Cold" helped Balu Brigada reach a much wider international audience, while the debut album Portal showed that the band's appeal extended beyond one breakout track. Songs including "Backseat," "Sideways" and "The Question" carry the same combination of indie rock and polished alternative pop, giving their Saturday T-Mobile Stage appearance an easy fit within ACL's afternoon schedule.
Finn Wolfhard
Finn Wolfhard performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Finn Wolfhard may be most widely recognized for acting, but music has been a consistent part of his career rather than a side project assembled after television success. He previously fronted Calpurnia and later worked with The Aubreys before moving into solo recording, drawing heavily from indie rock, power pop and the fuzzy guitar music that influenced him growing up. His solo album Fire from the Hip arrived with Wolfhard placing even more emphasis on songwriting and control of his own musical identity. The songs mix loose guitar rock with more personal writing about relationships, uncertainty and growing up in public. Performing on the American Express Stage at ACL gave the project a considerably larger platform while still keeping the presentation rooted in the kind of guitar-driven music he has pursued for years.
Common People
Common People performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Los Angeles alternative rock band Common People formed after its members began regularly playing together in a Southern California basement, developing a sound that mixes garage rock, indie, psychedelia and straightforward melodic songwriting. Early demos caught the attention of Cage the Elephant guitarist Brad Shultz, who signed the group to his Parallel Vision label and produced material including the Games EP and the single "Shapeshift." Their Weekend Two appearance on the BMI Stage gained an unexpected connection to that relationship when Cage the Elephant singer Matt Shultz joined the band. Together they performed "Gouge Away" by Pixies, giving the young group a festival moment much larger than its position on the schedule might have suggested. It also made the set a reminder of why arriving at ACL's smaller stages can occasionally produce something unavailable anywhere else that day.
Young Miko
Young Miko performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Puerto Rican rapper Young Miko has become one of the most prominent artists to emerge from the newer generation of Latin trap and reggaeton. Born María Victoria Ramírez de Arellano Cardona, she moved from early independent releases and the Trap Kitty EP into international collaborations and the album att., with "Classy 101" helping push her beyond the Latin charts into a broader pop audience. The follow-up album Do Not Disturb drew heavily from the strange, isolated rhythm of life on tour and showed a more reflective side without abandoning the confidence of her earlier music. At ACL, Young Miko occupied the American Express Stage in the middle of Saturday afternoon, giving one of the festival's relatively few major rap bookings a prominent place on one of its largest stages.
Arcy Drive
Arcy Drive performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Arcy Drive grew out of four friends making music together in Northport, New York, developing what the band has called "Attic-Rock." The description fits a group whose early identity was built less around studio polish than around playing together, first locally and eventually on the road after converting an old school bus for touring. That do-it-yourself history remains part of the appeal as the band moves onto increasingly large stages. Songs such as "Roll My Stone," "Time Shrinks" and newer material including "one'n a million" combine loose indie rock with enough melody to keep the rough edges inviting rather than chaotic. Their Miller Lite Stage appearance brought that grassroots guitar-band energy into Saturday afternoon.
Chloe Qisha
Chloe Qisha performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Malaysian-born, London-based Chloe Qisha emerged quickly after releasing her first music in 2024, developing a style of alternative pop that mixes contemporary production with an obvious affection for earlier eras. She is a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, and her songs often place sharp, self-aware writing inside polished arrangements that can move between synth-pop and guitar-driven pop. The self-titled Chloe Qisha EP and the follow-up Modern Romance established that identity through songs including "VCR Home Video," "Sexy Goodbye" and "21st Century Cool Girl." A place on the BBC Sound of 2026 shortlist added to the growing attention around her, while the BMI Stage at ACL offered another indication of how quickly the project has moved from debut singles to major international festivals.
Ryan Beatty
Ryan Beatty performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Ryan Beatty's career has gone through several distinct versions, beginning with teen pop before gradually moving toward more intimate and adventurous songwriting. Albums including Boy in Jeans, Dreaming of David and Calico stripped away much of the polish associated with his earliest work, replacing it with alternative R&B, folk and understated arrangements built around Beatty's increasingly expressive voice. His 2026 album Sweet Fortune continued that evolution with influences reaching into 1960s and 1970s singer-songwriter music, while his work outside his own records has included collaborations with artists such as Tyler, the Creator and songwriting contributions to Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter. At the Beatbox Stage, the quieter detail in Beatty's music provided a sharp contrast to many of the electronic acts that would occupy the same area later in the day.
Lola Young
Lola Young performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)South London singer-songwriter Lola Young has built her music around the parts of life that are often easier to hide: failed relationships, insecurity, anger, addiction and the contradictions involved in trying to become comfortable with yourself. Her breakthrough album This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway combined alternative pop, soul and rock with a deliberately unpolished writing style, while "Messy" became the song that pushed her into a much larger international audience. Thousands were waiting when Young reached the American Express Stage on Saturday, where songs including "Wish You Were Dead," "Big Brown Eyes," "One Thing" and "Messy" gave the set the same mixture of humor, vulnerability and bluntness found on the records. Her powerful voice can make the material feel much larger in a festival setting without removing the roughness that made the songs appealing in the first place.
Levity
Levity performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Chicago electronic trio Levity has risen quickly through the bass-music world with a mixture of dubstep, trap and future bass built specifically for energetic live settings. John Hauldren, PJ Carberry and Josh Tarum met through the University of Iowa before teaching themselves production and eventually relocating their project to Chicago. Their momentum accelerated with "Flip It" and an unexpected breakout appearance at Electric Forest. By the time Levity reached the Miller Lite Stage at ACL, the trio had developed the kind of audience that treats a festival set as a full-scale rave rather than a passive DJ performance. Heavy bass, hip-hop-influenced rhythms and sudden drops kept the set focused on movement, giving anyone who still had energy left near the end of a brutally hot Saturday somewhere to spend it before the headliners.
Snow Strippers
Snow Strippers performing at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)Snow Strippers is the electronic duo of vocalist Tatiana Schwaninger and producer Graham Perez, who began releasing music together after relocating to Detroit. Their sound pulls heavily from the electronic underground of the 2000s and early 2010s, mixing electropop, trance, hardstyle and the hazier influence of witch house into music that can feel both nostalgic and intentionally abrasive. The duo developed a devoted online following through releases including The Snow Strippers and the Night Killaz mixtapes, while collaborations with Lil Uzi Vert helped expose the project to a broader audience. Their Beatbox Stage set brought that frantic electronic energy into Saturday evening, pairing Schwaninger's vocals with Perez's dense production in a performance that fit ACL's increasingly prominent electronic side.
Silent Disco
Silent Disco at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas on October 10, 2026. (Photo: Ralph Arvesen)ACL's Silent Disco has become its own late-night tradition, offering a completely different experience from the enormous headliner crowds at opposite ends of Zilker Park. Produced by Quiet Events, the setup gives participants wireless LED headphones with three channels, allowing them to switch among competing DJs playing different styles of music while the color of the headphones shows everyone else which channel they have chosen. From outside the headphones, the scene can look almost surreal: hundreds of people dancing and singing together while the surrounding tent remains comparatively quiet. Inside, it becomes a social competition among the DJs as people move between channels depending on what they want to hear. Running from 8 to 10 p.m. at the Tito's Handmade Vodka Stage, Silent Disco once again gave Saturday festivalgoers a third closing option beyond choosing between the night's two major headliners.
Austin City Limits Music Festival
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