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Community impact
Launched in 2002 and inspired by the long-running PBS show, Austin City Limits, the Austin City Limits Music Festival has grown into a two-weekend experience, featuring world-renowned and up-and-coming acts on 8 stages in Austin’s crown jewel Zilker Park. The festival, now among the largest and most recognized in the country, hosts 75,000 music lovers per day from Austin and around the globe. Its diverse lineup spans pop, rock, folk, alt-country, blues, gospel, R&B and electronic music.
Austin parks foundation
Austin City Limits Music Festival is produced in partnership with Austin Parks Foundation. A portion of every festival ticket sold directly supports Austin’s public parks, trails, and green spaces - raising an impressive $8.4 million in 2024 alone. Since 2006, ACL Festival has generated more than $71 million towards improvements to Zilker Park and parks across Austin. In the year ahead, APF will utilize ACL Fest funds to help design and complete park improvement projects across Austin including projects at Grand Meadow Neighborhood Park, Rosewood Neighborhood Park, Jamestown Neighborhood Park, and Onion Creek Metro Park. To learn more about Austin Park Foundation’s impact in the community, and how festivalgoers are helping shape a greener Austin, please visit https://austinparks.org/acl-music-festival/.
Programs
Austin City Limits University (“ACL Fest U”)
- Collaboration with Austin Community College to provide festival education and job training to students studying event production (audio, staging, lighting), film, and marketing
- Culminates at ACL Music Festival, with panel discussions led by C3 staff and industry leaders.
- Gives Austin-based students the tools and access needed to jump start careers in live music.
ACL Music Festival Job Fair
- Free festival hiring fair hosted in collaboration with Austin Community College
- Features C3 departments and vendors hiring for part-time and full-time festival positions.
- Highlights industry pathways through workshops, panel discussions, and keynotes.
Austin Independent School District
- Year-round partnership with Austin Independent School District (AISD) that introduces students from Austin High School and Crockett High School to the world of live music entertainment.
- Includes field trip to the C3 Presents headquarters for sessions with festival department heads across marketing, production, talent, and operations.
- Features in-class visits from festival industry leaders to provide career exposure and mentorship.
- Program culminates in ACL Immersion Day, a half-day event held between ACL Festival weekends that gives students a behind-the-scenes tour of the festival grounds and hands-on learning activities. Led by the ACL organizing team, the experience introduces students to event production through topics like stage builds, sound, operations, and guest experience.
Greening/SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS
Austin City Limits Music Festival is committed to sustainable festival practices in the field, behind the scenes, and through preservation of Austin’s crown jewel, Zilker Park. This commitment is integrated into every area of the park, from recycling and composting to eco-friendly service items at ACL Eats, and Hydration Stations that provide patrons free, filtered water, diverting millions of plastic bottles from the landfill. Additionally, ACL Fest utilizes the power grid to power 60% of the festival, reducing the reliance on fossil fuels while also using biodiesels for all generators and equipment, along with funding renewable energy projects through carbon offset purchases.
ACL Fest has an extensive material recovery program and works with various community partners like Habitat for Humanity and Austin Creative Reuse to put materials in the hands of those that need it. In 2024, 45,000 pounds of material was recovered and reused through these partnerships.
Austin Parks Foundation makes the festival greener by encouraging reducing, re-using and recycling. ACL Fest’s Signature Greening Programs, Rock & Recycle and Divert It! are presented by Austin Parks Foundation. Rock & Recycle encourages festival attendees to pick up a bag of recyclables from the grounds in exchange for a specially designed ACL Fest line-up tee. Divert It! enlists volunteers to encourage and educate fans by helping them compost, recycle and send less waste to landfills. For more information about Austin Parks Foundation and their exciting ACL Fest volunteer program, please visit www.austinparks.org/acl-music-festival.
Harm Prevention Resources
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE
Austin City Limits Music Festival strives to continually update and evolve our safety and security protocols, which includes education and preventative measures to keep people safe. With this in mind, we are partnering with This Must Be the Place, an overdose prevention nonprofit, who will educate music fans about the dangers of Fentanyl and supply them with the life-saving opioid reversal medicine, Naloxone, commonly known as Narcan. We encourage fans to stop by their booth at the festival and learn more.
In 2024 alone, This Must Be the Place distributed more than 40,000 Naloxone kits across 22 festivals produced by C3 Presents.
ECONOMIC IMPACT TO THE CITY OF Austin
The annual Austin City Limits Music Festival continues to contribute significantly to Austin’s economy. Austin City Limits 2024 contributed $534.8 million to the Austin economy, which is the equivalent of 3,607 full time jobs. Since we began tracking economic impact in 2006, Austin City Limits has generated over $4.1 billion for the Austin economy – the equivalent of retaining 39,574 jobs for Austin employees.
