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ACL runs the same festival twice, and 77 of its 130 acts play only one weekend

The two ACL weekends share more of a lineup than any other pair of festivals we index. It still leaves 77 names playing one of them.

Austin City Limits is the only festival in our catalog that runs itself twice. Same park, same promoter, two Fridays apart — Weekend One on October 2 to 4, Weekend Two on October 9 to 11, both at Zilker Park.

Two chances at the same thing, is the pitch.

We hold 91 names for the first weekend and 92 for the second. Fifty-three of them appear on both. That leaves 130 distinct acts across the two, and 77 of those 130 play one weekend only — 38 on the first, 39 on the second.

No two bills we index are closer than this, and it isn't close

Across the 80 upcoming festivals we hold with 20 or more named acts, there are 1,139 pairs that share at least one artist. Ranked by how much of their combined lineup the two have in common, the ACL weekends sit at 40.8 percent.

Second place is 16.3 percent.

The ten most-alike pairs of festival bills we index

The ten most-alike pairs of festival bills we indexACL Weekend One x Weekend Two 40.8%, Time Warp New York x Mexico City 16.3%, Dancefestopia x Lost Lands 15.6%, Portola x CRSSD Fall 14.3%, Lost Lands x Cyclops Cove 12.8%, Lost Lands x Wakaan 12.4%, Dancefestopia x Valley of the Seven Stars 12.1%, Dancefestopia x Cyclops Cove 11.8%, Wakaan x Valley of the Seven Stars 11.7%, Lost Lands x Valley of the Seven Stars 11.5%ACL Weekend One x Weekend Two40.8%Time Warp New York x Mexico City16.3%Dancefestopia x Lost Lands15.6%Portola x CRSSD Fall14.3%Lost Lands x Cyclops Cove12.8%Lost Lands x Wakaan12.4%Dancefestopia x Valley of the Seven Stars12.1%Dancefestopia x Cyclops Cove11.8%Wakaan x Valley of the Seven Stars11.7%Lost Lands x Valley of the Seven Stars11.5%
Share of each pair's combined lineup that appears on both, across the 1,139 pairs of upcoming 20+ act festivals that share any artist. 1,047 of those pairs sit under 5 percent.

Only ten pairs in the whole catalog clear 10 percent. Exactly one clears 20, and it is a festival compared against itself. That is the finding in both directions at once: ACL's two weekends are the closest thing to a repeat we can measure, and they still have less than half a lineup in common.

The sameness is concentrated at the top

Charli XCX, Turnstile, Labrinth, The Chainsmokers, Steve Aoki and RÜFÜS DU SOL are all on both bills. So is Twenty One Pilots, and so is Lorde.

Two names at the top are not. Skrillex plays weekend one and not weekend two. Kings of Leon plays weekend two and not weekend one.

Take the first ten names in each lineup as we store them: eight of weekend one's first ten also play weekend two, and seven of weekend two's first ten also play weekend one. The two lists open with the same name and hold the same four names in positions three through six, which is not what an arbitrary ordering looks like. Below those first ten it drops toward a coin flip.

Our own data explains two of the gaps

Skrillex is at Head Trip in Indio on October 10 and 11 — inside weekend two's run. Underscores plays weekend one only, and is booked at FORM Arcosanti on October 9 to 11, also inside weekend two.

That is two acts, and it is the whole of what we can say. Only four of the 77 weekend-exclusive names appear anywhere else in our catalog at all, so the other 73 are gaps we can see but not account for. Neither of the two weekend-two exclusives we can trace has a weekend-one conflict.

What this catalog can't tell you about ACL

Our row tags ACL as electronic. The bill mostly isn't. Twenty-one of the 130 acts turn up on any other festival we hold, and our catalog leans heavily dance — so the 109 that don't are mostly a measure of what we index, not of who ACL books. Read the exclusivity numbers on this one with that in mind.

None of the ten artists on our Most Booked board are on either weekend. Levity is the busiest name here at 13 upcoming shows, and plays both. We hold no set times for either weekend yet, so which day a given act lands on is still unknown.

If you're buying one weekend

Buying weekend one gets you 91 of the 130 acts. Buying weekend two gets you 92. Either way you miss most of forty names, and if there is a specific act you're going for, the weekend is not a detail.

Both lineups are on Electric State in full. Open the two event pages side by side before you pick.

Tickets

Ticket links below are affiliate links.

Every number here comes from the lineups we publish. Counted on 10 September 2026, across the 153 upcoming festivals in the catalog.


Electric State is free on the App Store, on Google Play, and at electricstate.app — lineups, set times and the boards this post is computed from.

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