Opinion: Hear me out, Austin City Limits Music Festival at COTA
I know you are going to hate this. But since ACL I’ve been thinking about something: the fest itself and how Austin handles it. First, I gotta get through the fine print: I’ve been to the Austin City Limits Music Festival exactly one time – for an hour. I went to see Duran Duran and left. I also got into a car accident trying to get there on time. I am someone who’s still holding hope that we’re going to get a Fugazi reunion one of these days, so me waiting in the throngs of people to hear Chappell Roan sing “Pink Pony Club” I am not. But after seeing the photos of Sabrina Carpenter’s crowd last week, you have to wonder if the scale of the artists who play at the festival—is the park even big enough to hold the people anymore? I can’t say where I’ve heard the rumor from, but someone told me ACL should be moved to the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), and I think the conversation’s at least worth having.
Every year it’s the same: dust storms, no shade, disgusting bathrooms. Those are solvable problems. Why wouldn’t you want to go somewhere built for crowds rather than rely on Zilker Park’s charm and skyline views? Is the skyline what’s keeping it in the city? Just vibes?
As a local, I can’t help but think ACL’s become more of a tourist cash grab than a community festival. The crowd’s gotten massive—officially, the festival claims 75,000 people per day, but the 2023 report counted over 81,000 daily, totaling roughly 450,000 across both weekends. That’s nearly half a million bodies in a public park, often in heat that feels like God’s hair dryer. It also generated nearly $500 million in economic activity last year. Great for hotels—not for the grass or anyone trying to drive down South Lamar.
Austin loves to call itself “green,” yet trashes its central park for two weekends straight, grinding the grass into dust and choking Barton Springs with runoff. Meanwhile, COTA (Circuit of the Americas)—yeah, the racetrack I can’t stand—was literally created for this kind of chaos. It can handle 150,000 people on a given day, with parking, shade, medical infrastructure, and exits that don’t involve hiking through a field of crushed Lone Stars and glitter. They’re even pushing a new parking structure out there. The main complaint about COTA is that it’s too much concrete. I dunno, that feels like a fair trade for not having to wear a bandana to keep from choking on dust and dirt.
In an era of moving festivals for the sake of sustainability (see: Levitation), it’s not a terrible idea. I get it—moving ACL to COTA sounds like sacrilege, like putting Barton Springs next to a parking garage (which almost happened). But if Austin wants to keep pretending it’s a city that plans ahead instead of just posting about it, maybe it’s time we act like one. Let Zilker breathe again—because right now, the port-o-potty stinks like pee.
Featured photo by Rylan McCoy courtesy of ACL Festival
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