2002 was the inaugural year of the festival. Unlike subsequent years, it was a 2-day event only. The festival, arranged by Charlie Jones and Charles Attal founders of C3 Presents, was thrown together in a matter of three or four months. The 2-day festival hosted 5 stages and 67 bands. One-day passes were $25. 42,000 people attended the event when only 25,000 were expected. The festival has grown every year since.
The 2003 ACL Music festival took place September 19–21. With 100 bands performing, tickets increased to $65 for a three-day admission pass. Children under 10 were admitted for free when accompanied by an adult with a ticket.
The 2004 festival took place on September 17, 18 and 19. It had eight stages and, on the second day, a top attendance of 75,000 people. This spike in attendance forced the festival promoters to lower capacity per the request of surrounding neighborhood associations.
The 2005 festival took place on September 23, 24 and 25. The 2005 Austin City Limits Festival won Pollstar's Festival of the Year Award. This was also the infamous "Dust Bowl" year where dust kicked up by the festival crowd made it difficult for audiences to breathe. The following year, sprinklers were installed in Zilker Park to remedy this problem. Organizers reduced the daily capacity of the event by 10,000 fans because of neighborhood disputes in the previous years. Three-day passes were sold for $105.
The 2006 festival took place on September 15, 16 and 17. After sweltering heat in 2005, festival organizers attempted to relieve festival goers from the Texas sun by adding more misting and water stations and more tents for shade. Organizers also added a mobile phone texting feature to the festival. AT&T's Blue Room offered options for fans to watch live streaming bands playing from the comfort of their own homes.
Ben Kweller suffered a nosebleed during his set. He attempted to stem the flow by inserting a tampon, thrown to him by an audience member, into his nostril. The tampon expanded painfully and then he removed it. Kweller performed two more songs until he had to leave the stage.[1] The next day when The Flaming Lips performed, lead singer Wayne Coyne asked the audience to throw tampons at him to help mop up his signature fake blood. It continued to rain tampons on the band for well over two songs.
The 2007 Austin City Limits Music Festival occurred September 14, 15 and 16 in Zilker Park. Several acts, including Amy Winehouse, The White Stripes and Rodrigo y Gabriela, cancelled their appearances at the festival for health reasons, the latter two on very short notice. The scheduled performance by Saturday headliner The White Stripes was replaced by moving already scheduled Muse into the headlining slot.
Other notable moments include Friday when a propane tank was ignited and a fire broke out in the service area, burning down two trailers and several port-o-potties. Four people who were working at the festival were injured, two of them seriously. A second fire broke out on the speaker stack at the AT&T stage during Björk's set, but it was quickly extinguished and no injuries were reported.[2]
The 2009 festival took place on October 2–4, 2009. This year's festival is most commonly remembered as the one when torrential rains which started falling on Saturday afternoon turned the new grass turf into slick fields of Dillo Dirt mud.
Austin City Limits Music Festival was held over two weekends: October 3–5 and October 10–12, 2014. Forbes called it one of five American music festivals to look forward to.[6]
Austin City Limits Music Festival was held over two weekends: October 6–8 and October 13–15, 2017. The lineup featured headliners Jay Z, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chance the Rapper, The Killers, and Gorillaz. This was the year that Silent Disco produced by Quiet Events began.[7]
Austin City Limits Music Festival, weekend 2 in 2018.
Austin City Limits Music Festival was held over two weekends: October 5–7 and October 12–14, 2018. The lineup featured headliners Paul McCartney, Metallica, Arctic Monkeys, Travis Scott, Odesza, and The National. Childish Gambino was forced to cancel his performance after a foot injury, and Justice was promoted from an earlier time slot to replace him as a headliner. Phoenix and Lil Wayne were also added to fill the empty time slots, with the former playing on the first weekend of the festival and the latter on the second weekend.
2020 Austin City Limits Music Festival was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Austin, Texas. The festival was held on October 9–11 and streamed previous festivals as well as live performances.[9]
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