October might be one of the craziest months for an Austin local with so many events including my personal favorite, Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL), hosted at Zilker Park.
This year was another fantastic event – from incredible new vendors, tasty local foods, seeing old friends, meeting new ones and enjoying live music during golden hour ACL has done it again!!
There’s so much to be said about ACL, yes, it’s absolutely hot but there are so many ways to cool down including brand new pop-up’s from Google and Patron or watching the infamous Texas Longhorns vs. Oklahoma Sooners game under the beer garden with massive fans blowing. Fans could win awesome prizes from ACL’s vendors like Tito’s, Patron, Google, T-Mobile and more including lounge passes, side stage viewing, signed artist merch, vendor merch and even DoorDash coupons to keep the good vibes going. Fans can also check out a stage called “Bonus Tracks” to see intimate performances and hear speakers such as Matthew McConaughey and Brene Brown who hosted “Longhorn Love” this weekend.
I’m so impressed with ACL because of the kindness of staff and professionalism. This year the security team took another huge step and offered attendees in the front cooling towels from an ice bucket to help battle the Texas sun. This was a game changer and something I hope they continue to do and they were so on top of it to make sure fans weren’t overheating.
Onto the music, the festival had incredible acts from some of the biggest headliners to brand new talent such as Ally Salort, Aidan Bissett and Sydney Rose who got their big breaks on TikTok. I loved that this year’s festival included bass edm talent, Zeds Dead, with a ton of pyro and a customer Austin skyline as their set design. People of all ages and backgrounds got to jam to new and old bangers while watching T-Pain and we got to witness ROLE MODEL bring out Lizzy McAlpine for his song “Sally, When The Wine Runs Out”. People waited all day to see Sabrina Carpenter’s set on Saturday and she absolutely delivered plus brought out The Chicks for their hit “Wide Open Spaces” and the group joined Carpenter to sing “Please Please Please”.
Austin City Limits also hosts dozens of aftershows called “ACL Fest Nights” this year I had the privilege of seeing a sold-out Wet Leg show at the famous Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheater. The band delivered a special intimate night for fans including their hits “CPR” and “jennifer’s body”. It was such a joy to see fans dancing all over the venue, singing every lyric, bringing signs and getting to see a different setlist than their ACL show with new and old hits.
ACL is hands down one of the best events in the entire state of Texas, there is so much love and joy from fans, vendors, staff, artists and is an event I want to attend every single year. There’s something so special about the ACL flags, the ACL Fest sign at night and watching the balloon rise in the air by the Lady Bird stage. ACL you are special and you show up for Texas and attendees from all over the world year after year.
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