The 2025 15-year Austin City Limits Contract: "Money left on the table" -- and why it matters

The 2025 15-year Austin City Limits (ACL) Contract could have been the tool the Parks Department needs to raise money to restore vast acres of Zilker Park.

It is obvious to both tourists and residents that the park is degrading over time.

ACL Fest has expanded its footprint in recent years. A lot of long-term damage has been done to the acres between Barton Springs Road and the pool: These acres have no permanent irrigation. Stratford Lot and Polo Field are subjected to extreme abuse by being used as illegal parking lots year-round. A long-term -- and legal -- improvement to the Stratford Lot (Butler Landfill) is desired by the Watershed Protection Department.

The annual remediation to these park elements are minimal: only a return to baseline before the ACL event occurred. The long-term degradation -- and its causes -- have not been addressed by the Parks Department or the Austin Parks Foundation (the nonprofit partner of ACL).

I’m afraid that if we don’t look at the 15-year ACL contract in depth — right now — we will lose a window of opportunity to cancel and redraft the contract to get more money from ACL festival organizers C3/Live Nation: Money needed to restore the natural environment of Zilker Park.

My personal passion is to protect and restore the Zilker Park Polo Field, about 7 acres of prime parkland in Austin's “jewel” that could be converted to recreational use. At present it is still used as a parking lot for large events, a weekend lot for visitors, and as a staging-and-staff lot for ACL.  

In 2018, Council hoped to find a solution to the illegal parking lot problems in Zilker Park:

[See the 2018 Council Resolution 20180628-072:    

"the Polo Fields are located over the recharge zone for Barton Springs, making parking in the space less than desirable; "

"in order to accommodate the current visitation numbers, Zilker Metropolitan Park operationally utilizes both the Polo Fields and the Stratford Drive landfill space to accommodate temporary parking and temporary staging for special events, instead of restoring and utilizing these as green spaces for park use;" 

Source: https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=301684 ]

I have assumed that the only reason the City of Austin Parks department -- and City Council -- have not authorized the complete environmental restoration of the Polo Field in Zilker Park is "lack of money" because the political problems preventing the Polo Field restoration have been solved:

(1) In several actions, the citizen-led Parks Board and Environmental Commission have recommended closing the Polo Field as a parking lot and for its restoration as a natural surface. 

https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=423161

https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=416101

https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=300927

https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=412493

(2) One part of those citizen-recommendations was for the City to identify an external parking lot — within walking or shuttle distance —  for future special events held in Zilker Park. Luckily, in 2024 the City of Austin purchased two large commercial buildings 

on MoPac -- located just outside Zilker Park -- with two large parking garages. Mayor Watson told the public that the large garages could be used for Zilker Park's special events -- while increasing revenue for the City:

Mayor Watson, Oct. 11, 2024: "In addition, the location near Zilker Park creates great opportunities to address parking needs for that important city park and generate additional revenue for the City using the two on-site garages for public parking during festivals, events, and other activities." (source: https://www.austintexas.gov/watson-wire-archives#GettingAwayFromDirtSorry) 

Since Mayor Watson has identified the external parking garages for Zilker Park's events, and the citizen-led Parks Board and Environmental Commission want the Polo Field closed as a parking lot and restored as a natural surface for recreation and positive environmental benefits, I can only assume the remaining piece of the puzzle is “lack of money.”

I believe the ACL organizer C3/Live Nation should be held to a higher standard for both the annual rent they pay to the CoA for the next 14 years, and for one time gifts to the City for park infrastructure improvements. 

What didn't happen:

It has become obvious that neither the Parks Department nor the Austin Parks Foundation want to tackle the hard problems of Zilker Park: weekend and special event parking on illegal surfaces and long-term year-round environmental damage. 

What could be:

The ACL Contract is easy to cancel (requires only 30-days notice from the City to the Organizer) and could be re-negotiated to deliver the money needed to make improvements to the long-neglected environmental problems in Zilker Park.

What is our problem with the ACL Festival? In 2014, a small-town business model was sold to Live Nation. Times have changed -- but not for the Parks Department.

As the beloved KLRU 2002 Austin City Limits Festival morphed from being a locally-produced 3-day event to a 6-day event (in 2013), it was acquired (by the purchase of a controlling interest) by Live Nation in 2014. 

RESOLUTION NO. 020509-88, https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=86926

That the City of Austin welcomes the opportunity to partner with KLRU's Austin City Limits as an official host of the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park.

RESOLUTION NO. 20120816-057, https://services.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=175273

The City Manager is encouraged to negotiate and execute an agreement with C3 Presents to include an additional weekend event for the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

The City Manager is encouraged to ensure that deposit fees by all rental groups for the use of Auditorium Shores are collected and utilized for the maintenance and repairs for any post-event issues.

The City Manager is encouraged to ensure that any resulting agreement reflects stakeholders' input to the greatest extent practicable.

The City Manager is encouraged to work with C3 Presents to ensure that the Sustainable Food Center's Austin Farmers' Market Downtown can remain open during both weekends of Austin City Limits and to explore strategies for improving access to parking and Republic Square for market vendors and customers.

Chris Coplan, December 19, 2014: "Live Nation acquires controlling interest in Lollapalooza/ACL promoter C3 Presents"

By 2014, C3 could demonstrate to Live Nation the profits to be earned on the current established business model: 6 days over two weekends, with park rental prices set at 2010 prices when "large events" were smaller. -- And -- with the correct business model for "maintenance fee expense" based on the new Tiered Special Event Maintenance Fee published in the 2014 Annual Budget Ordinance.

By December of 2014, I can imagine what Live Nation saw: A 6-day event set up by locals who could lobby the Parks Department to maintain the status quo: Costs were low and predictable as long at the Parks Department didn't see a need to change the cost structure.

In 2010, a "large event" had over 10K attendees. By contract, ACL is allowed to sell tickets for 75K attendees per day. (Another 5K people are allowed in the park for staff and artists, for a total of 80K daily capacity). 

In 2014, an "expensive" ticket was listed as "more than $100." In 2025, the ACL ticket prices looked like this:

• Single-Day Passes:
  • Friday, October 3: Started at $223 (including fees).
  • Saturday, October 4: Started at $313 (including fees).
  • Sunday, October 5: Started at $150 (including fees). 
  • Single-day VIP: Prices start at $710.

Small town prices for a Live Nation venue

Since 2010, park rental fees have been frozen due to inaction of the Parks Department. The highest increment of attendees for a "large scale event" was -- and remains -- 10,001+ attendees. 

The event-day park rental fee hasn't changed to reflect ACL/Live Nation's 75K per day attendance.

Since 2014, the Tiered Special Event Maintenance Fee hasn't changed. The highest tier in 2014 for "sold admission" was $100+ per ticket. 

Who imagined daily ticket prices of $223, $313 or $710 per person in 2014? 

Probably no one -- except C3 Presents and their new bosses at Live Nation.

Copy and paste contracts

Live Nation purchased a controlling interest of the ACL Festival in December of 2014: This was just two months after C3 could demonstrate their new business model with the Austin Parks Department. 

The Austin Parks Department handles the annual renewal of special event contracts in a copy-and-paste mode: If it was correct last year, it is probably good enough for this year. No effort has been made since 2010 and 2014 to adjust large event fees to mirror the rising revenue (higher admission fees, more sales of concessions) earned by C3/Live Nation.

CM Ann Kitchen "called it what it was" in 2021

In a Council meeting on 10-21-2021, CM Kitchen told the truth about ACL:  The Parks Department had allowed more days and more area of Zilker Park without explaining this action to Council or the public.

"The previous council with the use of zilker park set in motion acl as an administrative activity in the future. So, there have been additions to acl including adding a second weekend. The location of acl has expanded into surrounding areas, all just the decision of staff without public input and without council input. "

From 2013 to 2014, the number of attendees doubled from 75Kx3 to 75Kx6. This doubled the environmental damage to the Great Lawn starting annually in 2014. By 2023, or possibly sooner, the physical area was expanded to occupy more of Zilker Park: More parking lots on the south side of Barton Springs Road (Polo Field -- possibly for staff and staging -- and Polo Picnic Parking Lot) and more parkland (southeast Lawn and Rugby Field).

I believe that the southeast Lawn and Rugby Field have no underground irrigation. Severe erosion and compaction to many acres is nearly impossible to remediate without consistent irrigation.  The Butler Landfill (aka "Stratford Lot") is already a contested cap -- an unpermitted parking lot -- according to the Watershed Protection Department, and it continues to age as it is heavily used by heavy equipment as an ACL staging area. The Moon Tower grounds now look like the surface of the Moon -- and the Parks Department doesn't seem prepared or willing to fix the big environmental issues in the park.

The problem is metastasizing administratively

In general, what we see is that long-term contracts -- or just business expectations, such as ACL before 2025 with its annual contract arrangement -- makes the City more inclined to "break the rules" of the contract rather than enforce the rules.

For example, the maximum allowed attendance in Zilker Park is 75K. Documents show that an additional 5K of staff are allowed.  This is supported by the Parks Department 2024 ACL Contract:

However, the 2024 ACL Ticket Manifest shows that ACL was allowed to sell nearly 491K admission tickets:

That's nearly 81K of paid attendees per day: nearly 6K attendees -- per day -- above the allowed maximum capacity.

Why would the Parks Department -- and the Fire Department -- allow capacity to exceed the maximum? 

Answer: It is easier than confronting Live Nation. It's easier than actually providing oversight of the ACL event.

The problem is metastasizing fiscally

(a) No additional rent revenue for the extraordinary number of attendees above 10,001: The 2010 the Fee Schedule stops at "10,001+ attendees" and PARD has not revised it; nor has PARD made the "large event fee schedule" consistent with the "$1.50 per attendee" structure of fees for smaller commercial events;

Here's the current fee schedule for smaller events: Smaller events pay $1.50 per attendee. Compare to ACL which pays 66 cents per attendee ($5K divided by 75K).

(b) minimal rent -- $500 per day -- is collected for the 4 days between weekends, when the ACL fenced areas of the park are still completely off-limits; 

(c) No additional rent revenue was adjusted for the expansion into additional acres of parkland: Polo Field, Polo Picnic Parking Lot, southeast Lawn and Rugby Field;

(d) 14 days of "clean up" are given to the C3 Organizer free-of-charge every year. 14 days FREE.

Note: It appears that C3 does pay the Tiered Special Event Maintenance Fee (about $1.4M annually) to the CoA; this is deposited into the General Fund. However, 2024 evidence shows that PARD charged C3 for about $200K of additional maintenance on March 28, 2025, after the event had concluded. Why? Is something going wrong?

The problem is further metastasizing: We don't see enough Zilker Park maintenance.

The ACL/C3 maintenance payments to the CoA are deposited into the General Fund. The park grounds appear to be intentionally neglected by the Parks Department as a mechanism to enable nonprofits (possibly Zilker 351 and/or APF) to gain access to the park.

Zilker Park's neglected long-term maintenance could be fixed if the Parks Department or Council would simply spend Zilker Park maintenance revenue on Zilker Park's long-term maintenance needs.

Zilker Park earns a lot of revenue for the City of Austin. It's time for the Parks Department and the City Council to show-some-love for Zilker Park.

09-22-2025 Email to Environmental Commission: The ACL Fest 2025 Contract has omitted many regulations

10-14-2025 (To City Council, Mayor, Parks Board, Environmental Commission)

Thank you for replying to confirm receipt of my earlier email.

You have probably been told by the Parks Department that the 10 pages of reduced content in the 2025 ACL contract is simply the relocation of content to external CoA sources. The fee schedule for the ACL rental of Zilker Park -- located now in the new ACL SCOPE OF WORK -- required an additional Public Information Request.  It took me several more days to collect the SCOPE OF WORK documents located in CoA Municipal Code, Austin Center for Events policies and procedures, Park Rules, etc. 

I have compiled an ACL SCOPE OF WORK LIBRARY: 15 documents, located outside of the ACL Contract.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15Ub_rJwFlq0seqUKsY-wPKEYNhZKWtr5?usp=sharing

I wonder how the ACL Organizer manages to comply with such wide-ranging materials, some of which appear to be contradictory to the very nature of the ACL Event.

For example, Special Event Property List (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15Ub_rJwFlq0seqUKsY-wPKEYNhZKWtr5) claims that the maximum capacity for The Great Lawn is "30,000+" which is still far below 80K.  I was unable to locate the Zilker Park maximum capacity of 80K (attendees and staff) in any of the SCOPE OF WORK. 

Thanks for your interest in the 2025 ACL Contract.

================================

10-02-2025

Dear Public Reader,

The Parks Department has since sent me the 2025 ACL Contract Addendum (2 pages).

The Addendum provides the details about the rental fees. However, ACL in 2025 continues to have minimal regulations (such as "maximum capacity of attendees"):

 • no Tiered Special Event maintenance fees (the fee-per-ticket for general park maintenance); 

• no EMS regulations, 

• no Fencing regulations, 

• no Maximum Capacity of Attendees, 

• missing Portable Toilet details, 

• missing Transportation details, 

• missing Waste Management details and 

• missing the impact of "free samples" on waste management. 

The 2025 ACL Contract Addendum:

Dear Ms. Johnston and Environmental Commissioners,

The Parks Department (APR) has chosen to use a new minimalist contract template for ACL in 2025. The event is right around the corner (although you won't find the event dates in the new 2025 contract -- one of many omissions, I believe).

The EC discusses various topics that impact the environment, health and safety of people. ACL Festival has impacts on environmental topics: Waste Management, EMS/public safety, Transportation (sustainable and mass transit), to name a few.

I have taken screenshots to show you the missing Contract oversight for ACL in 2025.

The first few screenshots are the top and bottom of the 2024 vs 2025 ACL Contracts. They show: No rent due, no deposit due, no mention of "25% non-refundable." Page 12 verifies that this is in fact the 2025 ACL Contract, signed by Dir. Aguirre and the Organizer Emmett Beliveau.

The 2024 ACL Contract was 22 pages. The current 2025 ACL Contract is 12 pages. That means 10 pages of regulations, reporting requirements, and site-plan requirements -- for example -- are simply missing in 2025.

With my file names and annotation, I tried to make each screenshot clear. Always, the 2024 ACL Contract is on the LEFT and the 2025 Contract is on the RIGHT.

Many issues in the 2025 contract might be of interest to the EC: 

• no event rental fees, 

• no Tiered Special Event maintenance fees (the fee-per-ticket for general park maintenance); 

• no EMS regulations, 

• no Fencing regulations, 

• no Maximum Capacity of Attendees, 

• missing Portable Toilet details, 

• missing Transportation details, 

• missing Waste Management details and 

• missing the impact of "free samples" on waste management. 

There are more. 

Perhaps you will find something of interest specific to the EC?

My best wishes -- and with gratitude for your volunteer service to the City,

Diana Prechter

The full contracts are at the links below:

2025: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cy6ZExQA2fWpus-qeMHdavd--yc5WxIy/view?usp=sharing

2024: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1irnEYmbp9yW0-nFwFw_PRTqZPM5KLroA/view?usp=sharing

Comparing various sections by subject:

2025 Update: Zilker Park turns muddy - Updated with WPD & PARD new information 04-08-2025

Three days ago, journalist Kasha Patel in the Washington Post sounded the alarm that climate change is damaging soil worldwide.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/03/27/earth-soil-moisture-drying-sea-level-study/

I'm concerned that the Parks Department may not be taking soil preservation seriously enough.

My Zilker Park photos on 03-30-2025 show excessive mud and mulch on sidewalks and roads; mud is entering the drainage culvert in the parking lot above Barton Springs Pool.

Roadways leading up to the Pool are full of mud. It is an indication of poor soil quality and the potential of even more severe soil loss this summer when temperatures rise.

This mud is now entering a drainage culvert near Barton Springs Pool.

Mud on sidewalk is dangerous for bikes.

Meanwhile, excessive mulch is on top of sidewalks -- where it is dangerous for bike riders -- and adjacent to Eliza Springs. The mulch appears to be part of the Zilker Train/APF concession. Maybe APF could be asked to better maintain the area around their concession. 

Several temporary berms appear to be at the end-of-useful-life. They are turning into sources of mulch that may float downhill toward the Springs, possibly entering the drainage culvert during heavy rains.

Entire hillsides continue to show signs of severe erosion after ACL Fest. Is there a permanent solution? Maybe these should be formally terraced to hold soil and provide safe pedestrian steps.

The Polo Field shows soil erosion with mud deposited at its low corners.

Looking at the south side of Barton Springs Road, Zilker Park is showing signs of soil wear-and-tear that would benefit from springtime maintenance, when seedlings might grow. How long can we allow informal pathways to get wider and wider without fences to guide footsteps?

Last, this is Stratford Drive where cars enter the Butler Landfill parking lot. Maybe the Transportation and Public Works Department could remedy?

Several drains appear to be blocked near the train tracks:

Good news!

PARD and Watershed Protection Department have responded as follows: