This year’s Austin City Limits lineup falls short and fails to reach its target audience. ACL has been a staple in Austin’s vibrant music scene for more than 49 years, and it is considered one of the most predominant annual music festivals, attracting hundreds of thousands of people nationwide. From what we have noticed at ACL, the primary audience is between the ages of 15 and 25. When creating the lineup for this year’s festival, it seems like event planners are attempting to push the festival towards older audiences and stick to a certain genre of music. This has been a trend that the lineup has been following for more than a few years now.
The 2024 lineup, especially the headliners, lacks variety; specifically there are few female artists or artists from diverse backgrounds. It also has little to offer younger generations, with Tyler, the Creator, Dua Lipa, and Chappell Roan being the most likely to attract younger audiences; however, due to the large number of well-known figures from the late ’90s and early 2000s, such as Blink-182, Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton and many others, the other main headliners are probably going to attract an older audience.
Despite the appeal to older audiences evident in the headliners, the rest of the lineup provides a few more popular pop/indie artists, but aside from them, the remaining artists are still relatively unknown by most people attending, unless a person has a proficient knowledge of music. While this can provide attendees with a good opportunity to discover new music and branch out, most people attend to see the artists that they know. So why even bother attending the festival if people aren’t interested in the performers attending?
Another major issue with this year’s lineup is the artists dropping out. For instance, Dominic Fike withdrew from the festival, which considerably reduced the lineup’s appeal to many eager attendees. In addition, the last-minute replacements will not draw in the same crowd and will disappoint attendees, who paid $300 to see their favorite artists live. Scheduling conflicts are yet another issue since many popular artists have overlapping schedules, forcing attendees to pick their favorites, which is a hard decision that can lead to reduced energy on both sets, impacting the festival’s atmosphere.
This year, festival organizers may be showing that they are attempting to introduce variety and move in a new direction by not hosting a few of their usual artists most notably Mumford and Sons who have appeared in 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2023. Out of the headliners, none have ever played ACL more than once before, so this seems to be a year of fresh faces. In the rest of the lineup, we see some returning artists but not many. Maybe this is just a turnover year, which explains why this year’s lineup is so disappointing to most. Alternatively, the festival might be trying to rebrand. It is crucial that ACL addresses these concerns in order to establish its honorable reputation among the people of Austin, as well as the country, as a must-attend music festival.
In the past, ACL has provided a unique local, yet mainstream, showcasing of artists creating a good balance of options for many different people. This made the festival feel exciting and fun for all audiences, helping cultivate the Austin experience into two short weekends. This year, however, the balance is off. Even though the headliners are popular, it doesn’t have the same large appeal as it did in previous years, and it left people feeling like they didn’t get their money’s worth and that the lineup was not as compelling as they had hoped for.
With the last weekend coming up, we’re excited to see the outcome of this year’s lineup and how it will affect future ACL attendance.
