The Austin City Limits Music Festival announced its 2026 lineup on Tuesday morning May 5 and tickets went on sale at noon CT at aclfestival.com. Charli XCX, Lorde, Twenty One Pilots, Rüfüs Du Sol and
The xx will headline both weekends of the festival’s 25th anniversary edition. Skrillex headlines Weekend 1 exclusively.
Kings of Leon headline Weekend 2 exclusively.
The festival returns to Zilker Park in Austin, Texas across two weekends, October 2 through 4 and October 9 through 11, with nine stages and more than 100 performances spread across the full run.
Three-day passes start at $365.
Here is the full picture of the lineup, the tickets, and what makes this particular year significant.
The Headliners
Seven names at the top of the bill represent one of the more genre-diverse and forward-leaning headliner slates ACL has assembled in recent years.
Charli XCX arrives in the wake of one of the most culturally dominant years any pop artist has had in the past decade, Brat summer, the relentless critical adoration, the Grammy nominations, the collaboration with everyone worth collaborating with.
She is one of the most logical headliner choices in festival booking right now and her ACL set will be one of the most anticipated performances of the 2026 outdoor season.
Lorde is the returning story. She last performed at Austin City Limits in 2014, when Royals was the song and she was a teenage phenomenon from New Zealand who had just released Pure Heroine.
That is twelve years between ACL appearances. She returns now with the full body of work behind her, having released Melodrama in 2017 and Solar Power in 2021, and with whatever her current era holds.
The gap and the return give her set a specific weight that a first-time headliner does not carry.
Twenty One Pilots bring the arena energy to a festival format, the Columbus duo has been one of the most reliably spectacular live acts in rock music for a decade and their ACL headline slot is a natural fit for a band whose music has always been designed to fill large spaces.
Rüfüs Du Sol, the Australian electronic trio, have been building toward a headliner designation at major American festivals across the past several years and ACL 2026 delivers it.
The xx have been a festival headliner fixture since their breakthrough in 2009 and their return to Zilker Park closes a different kind of loop, a band that defined a specific kind of cool in indie music now given the closing-set treatment at an anniversary edition.
Skrillex headlining Weekend 1 exclusively is the electronic booking for a crowd that wants the full festival experience but leans toward dance music.
Kings of Leon as the Weekend 2 exclusive headliner serves the audience that came for the rock side of a lineup that has something for almost everyone.
The Notable Snub That Fans Are Already Talking About
Before the lineup was announced, social media had generated significant consensus around one expected headliner who is not on the bill.
Olivia Rodrigo was widely predicted by fans and prediction market participants to be on the 2026 ACL lineup, her profile, her trajectory and the timing of her Unraveled Tour all seemed to point toward a festival headline slot. She is not on the lineup in any capacity.
The festival went in a different direction entirely, one that leans toward alternative pop and electronic sounds rather than the blockbuster mainstream pop formula that some had anticipated.
Whether Rodrigo’s absence reflects a scheduling conflict, a negotiation that did not close, or a deliberate choice to build the lineup differently is not information that C3 Presents has shared.
The Mid-Tier Acts Worth Knowing
Below the headliners, the 2026 ACL lineup rewards close attention. Leon Thomas, the singer-songwriter who spent years establishing himself as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary R&B before breaking through to wider recognition, earns a slot on a bill where his ability to hold a stage is going to introduce him to a much larger audience.
Labrinth brings his cinematic, soul-influenced production in live form to Zilker Park, which is exactly the kind of environment his sound was made for.
Lola Young, the British singer who performed at SXSW just weeks ago at the Rolling Stone Future of Music Showcase in Austin, continues what has been a rapid ascent through the festival circuit.
Her ACL slot follows the pattern of an artist being recognized at exactly the right moment, early enough that she still feels like a discovery, developed enough that the set will hold.
Bleachers, Jack Antonoff’s band project, arrives with the momentum of everything Antonoff has been attached to across the past several years, and the War on Drugs make their second ACL appearance after 2022.
The Chainsmokers return to the festival a full decade after their first appearance at ACL, a timeline that spans essentially the entirety of their cultural prominence.
Turnstile brings the hardcore contingent, Amyl and the Sniffers bring the Australian punk energy, Sofi Tukker brings the dance floor.
Brandon Flowers, the Killers frontman, who performed with the Killers at ACL in 2025, returns in a solo capacity. Suki Waterhouse, Lykke Li, Blood Orange and Natasha Bedingfield all earn spots on a lineup that is wider in its genre reach than its headliner tier might immediately suggest.
Rebecca Black, whose Friday became one of the most viewed YouTube videos in the history of the platform in 2011 and who has since built a genuine adult career in music, appears on the bill in a moment that says something about how the ACL booking team thinks about cultural history and current relevance simultaneously.
The Latin Presence And Texas Acts
The 2026 lineup has a meaningful Latin component. Young Miko, the Puerto Rican rapper who has been one of the fastest-rising artists in Spanish-language music, brings a sound that is distinct from everything else on the bill.
Rodrigo y Gabriela, the Mexican guitar duo, make another appearance at a festival they have visited before. rusowsky and Paloma Morphy round out the Latin presence on a lineup that is increasingly international in its scope.
Texas is also represented specifically. Asleep at the Wheel, the Austin-based Western swing institution, appears on the bill alongside Calder Allen, the grandson of Terry Allen, one of Texas music’s foundational figures.
Night Traveler, DJ Cassandra, Coleman Jennings, Grocery Bag and the Huston-Tillotson University Jazz Collective represent Austin and Texas across multiple genres.
ACL’s commitment to local talent has been a feature of the festival since its founding in 2002 as an event rooted in Austin music culture, and the 25th anniversary lineup maintains that commitment.
The 25th Anniversary Of Austin City Limits
Austin City Limits Music Festival began in 2002 as a two-day event conceived by Charlie Jones of C3 Presents, who wanted to create an Austin version of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
The festival borrowed its name from the long-running PBS music television series taped in Austin. It drew 42,000 people on its busiest day at its first edition.
Twenty-five years later, it hosts 75,000 fans per day across nine stages and two weekends.
According to C3 Presents’ 2025 community impact report, last year’s festival contributed $557.8 million to Austin’s economy, and since the festival began tracking economic impact in 2006, ACL Fest has generated more than $4.7 billion total.
C3 Presents, co-founded by Jones, Charles Attal and Charlie Walker, is now Texas’ largest concert promoter and one of the biggest in North America, overseeing events including Lollapalooza in Chicago, Bonnaroo in Tennessee, Shaky Knees in Atlanta and The Governors Ball in New York. Live Nation acquired a majority stake in C3 in 2014.
The 2025 edition was headlined by Sabrina Carpenter, The Strokes, The Killers and Hozier.
The 2026 edition’s headliners, Charli XCX, Lorde, Twenty One Pilots, Rüfüs Du Sol, The xx, Skrillex and Kings of Leon, represent a different kind of lineup.
One that is heavy on alt-pop and electronic sounds and that does not try to chase the blockbuster mainstream pop star formula that a 25th anniversary might have invited.
How To Get Tickets
Three-day passes for both Weekend 1 (October 2-4) and Weekend 2 (October 9-11) went on sale at noon CT Tuesday at aclfestival.com.
General admission three-day passes start at $365. GA+, VIP and Platinum passes are also available at varying price points.
Weekend 1 is expected to sell faster than Weekend 2 based on historical patterns.
