From this week’s Chronicle:

“‘With the Disney-fication of Sixth Street, we’ve had live [original] music venues get outpriced and move onto Red River,’ says Wickham. ‘And the bars that are on Red River right now, we’ve survived the economic downturns that have happened over the last three or four years. We’ve survived poor city planning that put a homeless shelter right across the street from my bar. And yet this smoking ordinance threatens me in a way that poor city planning and economic downturns never could. That’s the concern.

‘This is something real, and quite frankly, all the live music venues and all of the bands I’ve talked to, we’re scared. There are no two ways about it. I’m not going to lie and say we think we can beat this thing. We’re scared. We’re really scared. This is going to change not only our business but what Austin is to everybody who comes here, and the only thing we can do about it is try to better inform people right now.’”

The Austin City Limits Festival organizers are going to try to do something about the massive crowds that have been showing up the past couple years. This means that there will be less tickets available, 10,000 less to be exact. So to prevent being one of those 10,000 that would have gotten a ticket you should know that three-day passes go on sale tomorrow: Friday, April 15. Hopefully you make more money than you did last year too, because the starting prices have risen $15 (Inflation?). $85 will get you a three-day pass (day passes will go on sale this summer). And when the first allotment of tickets runs out (which probably shouldn’t take too long) you can expect that price to go up again.
Of course they aren’t releasing the lineup until May 5, so you’ll just have to go on faith that they’ll get some good acts. Organizers are also planning to stagger the headliners more so there won’t be a huge traffic jam when everyone leaves. I’ll believe that when I see it.

Buy Pass Online [austincitylimits.com]