AUSTIN, TEXAS—Austin City Limits, the city’s biggest music festival, returned this month for two weekends, Oct. 7-9 and Oct. 14-16, at Zilker Park. The festival felt bigger this year compared to its 2021 iteration, with more attendees and brand activations during the first weekend. A total of 75,000 attendees saw headliners like The Chicks, Pink, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lil Nas X, and Kacey Musgraves.
To ensure the city’s biggest park remains intact, the festival’s parent company, C3 Presents, partners with the Austin Parks Foundation, and portions of all festival ticket sales go back into city parks. There’s also the Rock & Recycle program, where attendees are encouraged to fill up bags of recyclable cans and beverage containers for a special ACL T-shirt.
Elsewhere throughout the sprawling grounds, brands and sponsors like American Express, Hulu, and Coke offered everything they could to provide unique and needed experiences for attendees, from glam stations and giveaways to photo ops and collectible art NFTs to shaded areas and air-conditioned spaces as a reprieve from the high outdoor temps.
Keep scrolling to see how brands attracted attendees during this year’s ACL...