Austin City Limits Music Festival

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Main entrance of the 2005 Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park.

The Austin City Limits Music Festival is an annual three-day music festival in Austin, Texas's Zilker Park. The Festival brings together more than 130 bands on eight stages, including rock, country, folk, indie, Americana, hip-hop, reggae, and bluegrass, and attracts a crowd of about 65,000 visitors each day. Named after the legendary PBS concert series, the festival is produced by C3 Presents, who also co-produce the Lollapalooza and Big State festivals.

In a very short time the Austin City Limits Music Festival has joined Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, and Coachella as the United States’ premier rock festivals.[citation needed]

Contents

[edit] Festival policies

Crowd at the Austin City Limits Music Festival with view of stages and Austin skyline.

Concert goers that have three day pass wristbands can leave and re-enter at any time. Those that have one day passes cannot re-enter. Allowed items include: Two 32oz sealed water bottles, umbrellas, folding chairs (there is a restriction on how close chairs can be moved to the stage). There is no car parking near the festival. Most concert goers park downtown and then take a free shuttle that is located at Republic square. Bike parking is available, though cyclists must provide their own locks. Outside food is not allowed inside the festival; however, vendors provide food and alcohol inside.

[edit] Weather

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Although the average high in Austin for the last two weeks of September is 88 degrees Fahrenheit, recently the event has endured above average temperatures and humidity. The highs for 2004 during the festival were 96, 96, and 93. In 2005 they were 98, 99, and 108. Temperatures reached 98, 99, and 90 in 2006. ACL has worked with the City of Austin to install a massive irrigation system to eliminate dust concerns during the Festival. In 2006 they also targeted dust patches by putting mulch on them, ending almost all of the dust problems. Tents and other stations have been set up and equipped with fan misters. Organizers do not want to move the festival into October due to conflicts with hotel room availability on UT football weekends, increased chance of rain, and the reduced chance of booking bands on summer tour.

[edit] Location advantages

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Austin City Limits is a very popular event in Texas for rock, indie, blues, world/ethnic contemporary and traditional, reggae, eclectic, fusion, electronic, soul, folk/Americana and almost all other music fans. Major metropolitan areas Dallas, San Antonio and Houston are each within a 3 hour drive of Austin and have no similar events. The location of Zilker Park in the middle of the city also features nearby Nature City and its gardens, the botanical gardens and Barton Springs pool, beach volley ball courts and a rock formation in Zilker park.The fest is also near downtown Austin, where many artists perform after-shows after they play at the festival.[1]

[edit] Relationship to television series

The historic Austin City Limits television series focused for many years on Texas singer/songwriters, country and folk performers, and instrument specialists. That is changing as the award-winning television series now resembles the Festival lineup and spotlights artists of every musical genre from rhythm and blues to rock, jazz, and alternative. Performers who have appeared on both the PBS show and the Festival in recent years have included:

[edit] 2009

The 2009 festival is scheduled for October 2–4, 2009. Scheduled to perform:

Friday, October 2:

Saturday, October 3:

Sunday, October 4:

[edit] 2008

The 2008 edition took place September 26–28, 2008.

Official Lineup

[edit] 2007

The National's Matt Berninger rushing the audience during the band's performance

The 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival occurred September 14 15, 16 in Zilker Park. Several acts, including Amy Winehouse The White Stripes and Rodrigo y Gabriela cancelled their appearances at the festival due to health reasons, the latter two on very short notice. The scheduled performance by Saturday headliner, The White Stripes was replaced by moving already scheduled Muse into the headlining slot.

Other notable moments include Friday when a propane tank was ignited and a fire broke out in the service area, burning down two trailers and several port-o-potties. Four people who were working at the festival were injured, two of them seriously. A second fire broke out on the speaker stack at the AT&T stage during Björk's set, but it was quickly extinguished and no injuries were reported.[2]

The following artists performed at the festival:

[edit] 2006

[edit] Highlights

  • Ben Kweller suffered a nosebleed during his set. He attempted to stem the flow by inserting a tampon, thrown to him by an audience member, into his nostril. The tampon expanded painfully and then he removed it. Kweller performed two more songs until he had to leave the stage.[3] The next day when The Flaming Lips performed, lead singer Wayne Coyne asked the audience to throw tampons at him to help mop up his signature fake blood. It continued to rain tampons on the band for well over two songs.

[edit] 2006

[edit] Lineup

[edit] 2005

The 2005 Austin City Limits Festival won Pollstar's Festival of the Year Award. This was also the infamous "Dust Bowl" year where dust kicked up by the festival crowd made it difficult for audiences to breathe. The following year, sprinklers were installed in Zilker Park to remedy this problem.

[edit] Lineup

Last minute replacement acts included:

Several acts were scheduled to appear, but cancelled due to transportation issues arising from Hurricane Rita, they included:

[edit] 2004

Jack Johnson at ACL 2004

The 2004 festival had eight stages, and, on the second day of the festival, a top attendance of 75,000 people.

[edit] Lineup

[edit] 2003

[edit] Lineup

[edit] 2002

2002 was the inaugural year of the festival. Unlike subsequent years, it was a 2-day event only.

[edit] Lineup

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Austin American Statesman
  2. ^ austin360.com
  3. ^ Rolling Stone, The 10 Best Shows at Austin City Limits

[edit] External links

Texas portal

Coordinates: 30°16′3.216″N 97°46′1.776″W / 30.26756°N 97.76716°W / 30.26756; -97.76716

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_City_Limits_Music_Festival"
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