5 Things to Know If You’re Getting an Austin City Limits Music Festival Travel Package

The Austin City Limits music festival, also known as ACL, is one of the most anticipated festivals in the world. The lineup is always full of A-listers, the city it’s in is a great place to be, and many influencers and celebrities attend every year. First-timers and frequent visitors alike invest in travel packages to get the absolute most out of the event while they’re there and skip out on the exhausting, and sometimes frustrating parts of going to such a big festival.

In some ways, ACL is like any other festival—there’s lots of people, lots of dirt, and lots of good music. But there are also many ways in which ACL is different. If you’re thinking of building a travel package for ACL this year, or just planning to go in general, at Xenia Events, we know all about how to make ACL the best it can be. Here’s our list of things you must know if you plan on partying here this year.

 Don’t even try to bring a car.

This is a rookie mistake that a lot of first-time festival goers make. Many people think that they can park somewhere and bus over, or suck it up and use the festival’s parking lot, but in reality there is an insane amount of downsides to driving yourself.

For starters, there is very minimal parking at Zilker Park and surrounding areas (it’s mostly parallel parking in streets) during festival season because so much of it is needed for stages, backstage areas, vendors, and more. There is an extremely small chance you’ll get parking, even if you come a day early. And even then, it’s not worth it considering how much you have to pay for it. If you spend all day at the festival, you could be spending more than you bargained for.

If you get a travel package with us at Xenia, we’ll provide you with black-car transport around the city (so you won’t have to worry about getting a car for purposes outside the festival). Of course, if you don’t get a travel package or your own driver, many people opt for Ubers. Our packages also provide you with Uber vouchers, and most other travel companies should be capable of arranging transportation for you.

As the saying goes, getting there is the hardest part!

Austin has a great food scene. Take advantage of it!

Austin is known worldwide for being a great place to eat. Austin thrives on small business and has a wide variety of multicultural and authentic restaurants.

Something that a lot of travel companies might not want to tell you is that the food at the festival itself can be unnecessarily expensive. While some people love roughing it and being at the festival all day, if you’re willing to take a break for an hour or two to eat, travel companies can help with that.

At Xenia (and most other travel companies) we can both make reservations for you at the best restaurants and give you recommendations if you don’t want a deadline. There are many places on South Lamar that are both high-end and quick and cheap that are near Zilker park, and absolute must-trys if you’re in Austin.

If you don’t plan on leaving the festival, consider saving up to $50 a day for food, or packing your own meals ahead of time.

Water is everything

Yes, even in October, it is hot in Austin, Texas. Attending ACL fest will have you running around, dancing and partying for hours on end in the hot sun, being sweaty and surrounded by other sweaty people. It really is common for people to suffer from dehydration and even faint at festivals. In order to have fun, you need to keep your health a priority. Staying hydrated is one of the most important keys to feeling your best.

Unfortunately, ACL has very strict rules about how much water you can bring in. First of all, you cannot bring any type of liquid. You can, however, bring empty water bottles and hydration packs. From the ACL website, the specific rules are:

Empty Water bottles (plastic or aluminum). For CamelBak type water bottle the max size is 36 oz… Hydration packs are allowed but must be emptied of all liquid and have no more than two pockets in addition to the one holding the water reservoir.

We highly suggest bringing one of these and refilling at water stations at the park, as once again, buying water bottles on-site can be overpriced and generally not worth it when you can carry around stylish bottles and packs of your own.

Bring friends, and make friends

The vibe of ACL is one of the best of any festival out there. People are friendly, and if you have music taste in common with the person next to you, you’ll likely have something else in common too! Bringing friends with you, of course, is also a lot of fun. Going to a music festival as crazy as ACL is definitely a great bonding experience, and creating friendships is a great way to make any trip or event memorable.

One thing to keep in mind if you’re going with other people to the festival is knowing how to find them. Your cell phone service will be bad! We repeat, you will not have great cell phone service! Over one hundred thousand people with smart phones all in one place really put a damper on things, but look on the bright side—you can be more in the moment with the music, and come up with fun way-finding stuff.

People attend the festival wearing matching clothes, bringing flags, rage sticks, and totems among many other things to keep track of their group. The festival is a crowded place, and people of all shapes, sizes, and heights attend, making it hard to find your crew. Make sure you have some sort of way besides a cell phone to find your friends, because your phone probably won’t be very reliable.

And a note from the ACL website again:

Totems, rage sticks and flags under 12 ft. tall are allowed for way-finding among friends. Items that are deemed by Festival organizers to be unsafe, inappropriate, offensive or are being used for purposes other than intended are prohibited and may be confiscated on site.

Balance between planning and going with the flow

At Xenia events, we are experts at planning and customizing things like an Austin City Limits music festival travel package to your needs. But the truth is, life doesn’t always go according to plan, and some of the best moments are spontaneous.

Going in with no plan at all is very difficult to work with as it’ll be hard to find sources of food, stay, and transportation with no ideas of where (people everywhere, everything is booked!) but if an opportunity arises, take it! Embrace the free spirit of the ACL fest and meet new people, discover new places, and listen to new music you haven’t heard before.

If you’re looking to go to ACL this year, let us create a custom, or pre-made travel plan, you can view our ACL packages here or contact us here for more information.