ACL FEST PREVIEW
Get ready for the festival with our critics’ picks, tips, map and three-day schedule.
Fifteen years into an event that changed the landscape of outdoor music in the Live Music Capital, the Austin City Limits Music Festival has done some rearranging amid its Zilker Park footprint for 2016. But the basics remain the same: Some of the biggest names in popular music mix with rising stars and local luminaries for three days of revelry. And then they’ll do it all again next weekend, for the fourth straight year.
The headliners include hip-hop man of the moment Kendrick Lamar, indie-rock holy grail Radiohead and England’s Americana interlopers Mumford & Sons, plus electronic music megaliths Major Lazer, Flume and M83.
A few things we know: There will be hordes. There will be flags. There will be sweat. And there will be sprinters heading for the lip of the main stages as soon as the “Star Wars” theme trumpets the opening of the gates at 11 a.m. each day.
Check out our guide and we’ll see you in the park, where the weekend forecast includes sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-80s, near-perfect weather if it holds.