After a summer of floods and 107-degree afternoons, Austin’s fall is busier than its summer, and unlike its summer it is entirely optional — nobody has to be outside in August, but a lot of people choose to be outside in October. What follows is what is actually confirmed between now and Thanksgiving, with dates checked against the organisers rather than last year’s listings.
The big one: ACL turns 25
Austin City Limits Music Festival returns to Zilker Park across two weekends, October 2–4 and October 9–11, for its 25th anniversary. Charli xcx, Lorde, Rüfus Du Sol, Twenty One Pilots and The xx headline both weekends; Skrillex plays weekend one only and Kings of Leon weekend two only. More than a hundred performances across nine stages, with Turnstile, Bleachers, Blood Orange, Geese and Lola Young further down the bill.
If you are buying, weekend two’s Friday general admission was flagged as running low in early September. If you live near Zilker, Barton Hills or South Lamar, you already know what those two weekends do to parking.
The day to plan around: Saturday, October 24
Three separate large events land on the same day, and they do not share a neighbourhood:
- Formula 1 United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas, the middle of a four-day event running October 22–25 with the race on Sunday. Post Malone headlines the Saturday night concert. New this year is a Thursday add-on tier from $20.
- Texas vs. Ole Miss at Darrell K Royal, kickoff time still flexed.
- Viva la Vida Fest and Parade, the 43rd annual and Austin’s largest Día de los Muertos celebration, free at Fourth and Congress from noon, with the Grand Procession opening the day.
Southeast toward the track, central at the stadium, downtown for the parade. If you need to be anywhere in Austin that Saturday, assume it will take much longer than the map says.
Still to come in September
Levitation runs September 10–13 across The Far Out Lounge and a string of downtown venues — Bikini Kill, Molchat Doma, Arlo Parks, Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats. Four-day passes are gone; individual shows and Far Out Lounge passes remain.
Fantastic Fest takes over the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar September 17–24 with 56 world and international premieres. Every badge tier has sold out, so watch for individual ticket releases rather than badges.
The Pecan Street Festival is September 12–13 — and it is no longer on Sixth Street. The 51st edition has moved out to the Hill Country Galleria in Bee Cave, with free admission and free parking. Almost every description still calls it a Sixth Street event; it is not one this year.
COTALAND, the theme park built at Circuit of the Americas, opens September 26 with 34 rides, including Texas’s only tilt coaster and the country’s first infinity shuttle coaster.
And on the football side, Texas hosts Ohio State on September 12 at 6:30 p.m., then UTSA on the 19th. Season tickets sold out before the season started.
Go see the bats now, not later
The Congress Avenue Bridge colony leaves. Mexican free-tailed bats form the colony in March and, per Merlin Tuttle’s Austin Bats, begin heading for Mexico by late October, with a major cold front usually triggering the departure. September is still reliably good; October gets progressively less so.
If seeing the emergence is on your list this year, September and the first days of October are the window. It is free from the bridge itself or the lawn at the Statesman Bat Observation Center, and it happens around sunset. Bat Fest itself was September 5 and has already passed.
Halloween, and the long haunt season
The haunted attractions open earlier than the holiday. House of Torment runs September 12 through November 8. Scream Hollow, on twenty acres south of Bastrop, runs September 18 to November 1. Trail of Terror north of town runs September 19 to November 1, and Bat City Scaregrounds in Buda takes select dates from September 26.
For something without the jump scares: Pioneer Farms Pumpkin Nights runs September 17 to October 31, Boo at the Zoo takes weekends October 2–24, and the Austin Symphony’s Halloween children’s concert is October 18. Sweet Eats Adventure Farm in Georgetown opens September 19 through November 8 with a four-and-a-half-acre corn maze, a pumpkin patch and Friday and Saturday fireworks through October.
Halloween itself, October 31, is also a Longhorns home night game against Mississippi State. Downtown will be doing both.
Food and drink
Hot Luck Fest has moved to the fall — Aaron Franklin’s live-fire festival is now October 16–17, with the Giddy Up feast at Franklin Barbecue on Friday and the House Party tasting at Assembly Hall on Saturday. Twenty-five-plus chefs including Edgar Rico, Evan LeRoy, Ernest Servantes and Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel. Proceeds go to the Southern Smoke Foundation.
The Austin Food & Wine Festival is November 6–8 at Auditorium Shores. Texas Monthly’s BBQ Fest runs its BBQ World’s Fair and Top 50 Picnic in Lockhart on November 7 and 8. And Wurstfest, the 65th, runs ten days in New Braunfels from November 6–15 — free admission Monday through Thursday.
Two Oktoberfests, a week apart and unrelated: AustOberfest at Scholz Garten on October 3, and the German-Texan Heritage Society’s Austin Oktoberfest at the German Free School on October 10. Both land on ACL Saturdays.
Closer to home, The Still Austin Quarter opens on Willow Springs Road in South Austin this month — a café, vinyl lounge and music room from Still Austin Whiskey. No opening day has been announced beyond “September.”
November: books, art and studios
The Texas Book Festival returns to the Capitol grounds November 14–15 for its 31st year — free, roughly 250 authors, readings and signings across the weekend.
The Austin Studio Tour runs November 14–15 and 21–22, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., free and self-guided. One thing worth knowing, because most write-ups still get it wrong: there is no longer an East/West split. Big Medium has made the tour citywide across both weekends rather than dividing it into EAST and WEST. If you are planning around which side of I-35 to visit, that distinction no longer applies.
Also in November: the Austin Film Festival runs October 29 to November 5, honouring Brad Bird, Andrew Haigh and Aleshea Harris. The Austin Celtic Festival is November 7–8 at Pioneer Farms, tickets online only with none sold at the gate. The PGA Tour returns to Austin with the Austin Championship at Omni Barton Creek, competition rounds November 12–15. And Austin FC closes its regular season at home against Portland on Decision Day, November 7.
The crowded weekends, in one list
If you are choosing when to move, when to have people visit, or simply when to avoid I-35:
- October 3 — ACL weekend one plus AustOberfest
- October 10 — ACL weekend two, Austin Oktoberfest, and Texas–OU in Dallas
- October 24 — F1, Texas–Ole Miss and Viva la Vida. The most congested day of the season.
- October 31 — Halloween and a Longhorns night game
- November 7 — Austin FC Decision Day, the Celtic Festival, Food & Wine and BBQ Fest
- November 14–15 — Texas Book Festival and the first Studio Tour weekend
If you are weighing a move around these dates, you can browse all 197 buildings in the directory, read how it was built, or see how old, how tall and how large Austin’s biggest apartment buildings actually are.
Every date here was checked against the organiser or an official source in early September 2026. Events move; if you spot something that has changed, tell us and we will correct it. A few things we deliberately left out because they could not be confirmed for 2026: Trail of Lights dates, Barton Hill Farms’ fall season, and the exact date of Quesoff.