AUSTIN, Texas — As far as music festivals go, the first Austin City Limits festival in 2002 was a modest affair, with 67 bands and a one-day pass for only $25. That first year, about 25,000 people were expected to attend, but 42,000 showed up. And with that, an Austin tradition was born.
In a KVUE News interview broadcast the first weekend of the festival 20 years ago this fall, Terry Lickona, longtime producer of the acclaimed "Austin City Limits" television show on PBS, said that it was all about the quality of the music.
“The music is going to be good,” he promised just hours before the gates first opened all those years ago. “It’s going to be a comfortable and fun environment where people can bring their families and expect not only good music but good food and a chance to experience that real Austin vibe.”
And that vibe has lasted for two decades, a regular autumn ritual uninterrupted except during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 when the festival was cancelled due to health concerns.
There have been a few changes over the years. In 2012, the festival was moved from September to October, and ACL was expanded from one weekend to two in 2013.
Sure, there have been complaints every year about the crowds and the traffic and noise, but festival attendees have been able to witness some of the most memorable music performances of our time – even when they had to deal with choking dust whipped by high winds from an offshore Gulf of Mexico hurricane in 2005, or the mud from constant rain in 2009 when festival-goers had to make the best of ACL’s wettest weekend.
But there’s more to ACL than mud, music and memories. Organizers say that, since 2006, the music fest has added more than $2 billion to the area’s economy.
And, so, there’s more music on this final weekend of the 2022 ACL, and more proof – as if it's needed – that Austin truly is the live music capital.
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