![\"Jay](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1790857571_604_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nWhen Jay Trachtenberg thinks about his favorite Austin City Limits Music Festival, the answer is simple: \u201cThey sort of all run together.\u201d<\/p>\n
A KUTX program manager and longtime midday host, Trachtenberg has been to every ACL fest, which, if anyone is counting, spans 25 years. He said he remembers the first festival in 2002, when the crowd was sparse and the headliners reflected the city\u2019s Americana roots.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was probably a few thousand people there, but it really seemed so comfortable and easy to move around,\u201d he said. \u201cEverybody was saying how great it was thinking that it was going to be the only year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trachtenberg said he remembers performances over the years from headliners like Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Lizzo. He said one that particularly stands out is Ben Harper\u2019s set during the festival\u2019s second year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a beautiful night, and the whole park was all on one side,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter the whole crazy weekend, everybody had congregated [in front of the] big stage. For me, it really felt like this magical moment of the whole thing coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jay Trachtenberg said the first few ACL festivals marked the end of \u201cOld Austin” and now it’s full of tourists.<\/p>\n
On especially hot years, when the ground of Zilker Park would get dry and dusty, Trachtenberg would sneak off to Barton Springs for a dip in the pool.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re essentially by yourself, and you could still hear the music playing,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that was a real treat for two or three years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trachtenberg said the first few festivals marked the end of \u201cOld Austin.\u201d He said now the festival is jam packed \u2014 a reflection of how the city has attracted the high-tech industry. <\/p>\n
\u201cI like to tell people, back in the day we came for the counterculture and now people come to make money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In the beginning, he said, all of the major music festivals had their own niches; Bonnaroo was a jam-band wonderland, Lollapalooza an anti-mainstream grunge festival and Coachella was a \u201cweird California thing.\u201d Over time, the festivals have started to morph into one another with the same headliners and small performers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings just get homogenized and it’s just the way it evolves,\u201d Trachtenberg said. \u201cSo how do I feel about it? I take it in stride at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Jay Trachtenberg thinks about his favorite Austin City Limits Music Festival, the answer is simple: \u201cThey sort…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":867044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[117550,365674,365675,365676,88,365677,29993,216,69437,365678,365679],"class_list":["post-867043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-acl","tag-acl-fest","tag-austin-city-limits","tag-austin-city-limits-music-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-jay-trachtenberg","tag-live-music","tag-music","tag-music-festivals","tag-old-austin","tag-zilker-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}