Music blares from multiple stages, energy from anticipation bubbles in fans’ chests, and the vibrations pound through your bones. Festival season is wrapping up, just as summer is coming to an end. Seniors Chase Morgan and Sydney Hanshew, as well as their friends, savor the last of summer with a trip to the Austin City Limits music festival.

“I love the energy you feel at Austin City Limits. It’s the best part of any music festival,” said Morgan.

Austin City Limits is an annual music festival that takes place in Austin, Texas on two consecutive three-day weekends. This year, the festival took place October 2-4 and October 9-11 and featured over 130 bands and artists including Drake, G-Eazy, Florence + the Machine, The Weeknd, and many more alternative artists and bands.

“I like to think that the people who go to the music festivals like Austin City Limits are all people who are similar to me. It is going to be so cool to be around 30,000 people who have the same music taste as me,” said senior Sydney Hanshew.

During the span of three days, countless alternative bands and electronic dance music artists graced one of the eight stages available for many artists giving fans a vast amount of options and never letting the adrenaline die.

“It was hectic, but it was good. Austin is wild. There were people just dancing in the streets in next to nothing,” said Morgan.  

Austin City Limits will be Hanshew’s first festival, and she has planned out her entire weekend, leaving just enough free time for spontaneous shows.

“I’m really excited to see Twenty One Pilots and A$AP Rocky. The best part of a watching a live performance is the atmosphere, because you are surrounded by other passionate fans and you’re all there for the one person who can engage and entertain,” said Hanshew.

There is more to Austin City Limits than just music. The city of Austin is well known for its food and the festival is a business opportunity for local and national food vendors. The Austin Art Market serves as a venue within the festival for an assortment of goods and services. From The Art Garage, where upcoming artisans can showcase their work, to band merchandise from artists from the lineup, as well as jewelry, journals, and clothing, ACL is a craft show, food frenzy, and a music festival at in one.

“Austin City Limits is different from other music festivals, such as Bonnaroo. There is no camping, so ACL was so much cleaner and that further contributed to energy of the festival,” said Morgan.

Hanshew and her friends used a hashtag to help record their experience at their first music festival.

“We used the hashtag #nwatakeacl because it’s something easily accessible so if I ever want to go back and look at the posts I made, all I have to do is look up that hashtag,” said Peyton Stewman.

Austin City Limits is the first festival that Stewman and Hanshew have been to, but will not be the last.

“If everything goes as planned, we should be going to ACL every year. Hopefully we can work our way up to Coachella. It’s the dream,” said Hanshew.