Austin City Limits Music Festival, better known as ACL Fest, is one of the best-known music festivals in the country and one of the biggest events of the year in Austin. For two weekends every October, Zilker Park turns into a massive outdoor music venue filled with stages, food, drinks, art, and tens of thousands of music fans.
ACL Fest 2026 will be held October 2–4 and October 9–11 at Zilker Park. This year is also a big one for the festival, marking the 25th anniversary of ACL Fest. The festival features more than 100 performances spread across nine stages over the two weekends.
ACL 2026 Lineup
The 2026 lineup is once again a mix of major national acts, established touring bands, newer artists, electronic music, rock, pop, and plenty of Texas talent.
The major 2026 headliners include Charli XCX, RÜFÜS DU SOL, Twenty One Pilots, Lorde and The xx. Skrillex is scheduled for Weekend One, while Kings of Leon takes that spot during Weekend Two. Other notable acts include Turnstile, Labrinth, The Chainsmokers, Bleachers, Lola Young, The War on Drugs, SOFI TUKKER, Parcels, Blood Orange and plenty more.
Many performers appear during both weekends, but the schedules are not identical. Some artists only play one weekend, so if there is somebody you absolutely want to see, check the individual weekend lineup and daily schedule before buying your wristband.
What ACL Is Like
ACL is basically an all-day music marathon. Bands begin playing around midday and continue into the evening, with different styles of music happening simultaneously across the park.
Zilker Park is huge, so ACL generally feels more spread out than festivals crammed into smaller downtown spaces. That does not mean it never gets crowded. The biggest headliners can draw enormous crowds, and moving from one end of the park to another between major performances can take some time.
Part of the fun is simply wandering around. You can watch a major band on one stage, walk a few hundred yards and stumble across a smaller artist you have never heard of, then grab something to eat or hang out in one of the festival areas before heading to the next show.
ACL also puts a big emphasis on Austin food and drinks, so there is considerably more going on than just the music. The festival incorporates local restaurants, food vendors, drinks, merchandise and other Austin businesses into the event.
ACL Fest Nights and After-Shows
The music does not necessarily stop when Zilker Park closes.
ACL also hosts ACL Fest Nights, a collection of official late-night shows at music venues around Austin. In 2026, shows are scheduled at places including Stubb’s, Emo’s, Antone’s, The Concourse Project, Historic Scoot Inn and other venues around town.
This is one of the things that makes ACL especially fun if you are coming from out of town. You can spend most of the day at Zilker Park, grab some food afterward and then head downtown or over to Red River for another concert.
Of course, doing ACL all day and then going to an after-show until 1 or 2 in the morning can turn into a pretty serious endurance event by Sunday.
Texas vs. OU and ACL Weekend Two
There is another very Texas reason to consider Weekend Two in 2026.
The annual Texas–Oklahoma Red River Rivalry is being played Saturday, October 10, 2026, which lands right in the middle of ACL Weekend Two. Texas and Oklahoma kick off at 2:30 p.m. Central Time at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
That might sound like a scheduling disaster for somebody who loves both football and music, but ACL has actually become a pretty cool place to watch the Texas–OU game.
In recent years, the festival’s Big Tent has shown the Red River Rivalry on large screens, creating what amounts to a giant Texas football watch party inside ACL. During the 2025 festival, the Big Tent again showed the game and attracted a big crowd of fans.
Assuming ACL continues the tradition in 2026, Weekend Two could give you the strange but very Austin experience of watching Texas play Oklahoma with thousands of other fans in the middle of a music festival, then walking directly from the game to your next concert.
Because the 2026 game kicks off at 2:30, it will definitely overlap with several Saturday afternoon ACL performances. If watching the game is important to you, check the Saturday music schedule beforehand and decide which bands you are willing to miss.
And if the Big Tent gets packed, there are obviously countless sports bars around Austin showing the game as well. You could watch the first half somewhere outside the park and then head into ACL afterward, although getting back into Zilker and dealing with crowds can eat up some time.
Tickets and Wristbands
ACL sells three-day weekend passes as well as single-day tickets, along with upgraded GA+, VIP and Platinum options.
Tickets tend to move quickly once the lineup and daily schedules are announced. As of September 2026, some ticket categories and individual days are already sold out or on waitlists, while limited tickets remain for others.
If you buy on the secondary market, stick with the festival’s official verified exchange. ACL specifically warns that wristbands bought from unauthorized sources may be counterfeit and will not get you into the festival.
Also, don’t tighten your wristband just to see how it works when it arrives in the mail. Once those things tighten, they aren’t designed to loosen again.
Getting to ACL
Do not plan on simply driving up to Zilker Park and finding a parking space. There is no festival parking at Zilker Park or in the surrounding neighborhoods.
ACL encourages people to use the festival shuttle, CapMetro, rideshare, bicycles, scooters or simply walk into the park. The Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail is also one of the easiest ways to approach the festival from downtown.
If you are staying downtown or somewhere reasonably close to Zilker, walking or biking can often be considerably less stressful than dealing with rideshare traffic when 70,000-plus people decide to leave at roughly the same time.
A Few ACL Survival Tips
A three-day ACL weekend is a lot more enjoyable if you treat it as a marathon rather than trying to sprint through every hour of it.
Wear comfortable shoes because you are going to walk a ridiculous amount. Bring sunscreen even if the October forecast looks comfortable. Austin can still be hot in October, and several hours standing in the Texas sun adds up quickly.
Drink plenty of water, eat something substantial during the day and give yourself some downtime between bands. You also don’t necessarily need to fight your way to the front of every stage. Sometimes sitting farther back on the grass with some food and a cold drink is a much better way to enjoy a set.
And definitely look at the schedule before arriving. With nine stages running throughout the day, there will inevitably be two bands you want to see playing at exactly the same time.
Is ACL Worth Going To?
If you love live music, ACL is absolutely one of Austin’s signature events.
You get three days of music in one of the city’s best-known parks, the Austin skyline in the background, local food and drinks, late-night shows throughout town and the general craziness that happens when a huge music festival takes over the city.
And in 2026, Weekend Two gets the added bonus of the Texas–OU game on Saturday afternoon.
Watching the Red River Rivalry inside ACL, catching another five or six bands afterward and then heading downtown for a late-night show is about as Austin of a Saturday as you can possibly have.
