Austin City Limits just announced five new tapings for its milestone 52nd season, and the lineup stretches from British pop breakout Lola Young to Cuban jazz legend Arturo Sandoval, all set to record inside ACL Live at the Moody Theater over the coming weeks. Bella Kay, Jesse Welles and Jack Antonoff's band Bleachers round out the newly confirmed dates, with tapings running from late September through mid-October.
As reported by the Austin American-Statesman, Bella Kay tapes first on September 22, followed by Arturo Sandoval on September 25, Lola Young on October 9, and Bleachers on October 11. Bella Kay is expected to perform songs from her debut album “My Reckless Abandon” along with the tracks “The Sick” and “iloveitiloveitiloveit,” and she's also scheduled for an afternoon set on the second Friday of the Austin City Limits Music Festival, which runs over the first two weekends of October.
A Season Built Entirely Around Full-Hour Episodes
This batch of tapings lands inside what is being called the largest season in the show's history, with all 18 episodes of Season 52 giving every featured artist a full-hour broadcast — a first in the program's more than 50-year run, according to JamBase. Previous seasons often split hour-long broadcasts between two acts, so the shift means each artist taping this fall gets a complete, dedicated hour rather than sharing the spotlight. The season also premieres September 4, 2026, with episodes streaming weekly on PBS.
Season 52's roster already includes Carlos Vives y La Provincia, Miguel, Ryan Bingham and the Texas Gentlemen, the Red Clay Strays, Ty Myers, S.G. Goodman, Ari Lennox, Sebastián Yatra, Billy Strings, Sienna Spito and Maggie Rose, per the Statesman's report. The five newly announced names join that lineup, with four of them — Bella Kay, Jesse Welles, Lola Young and Bleachers — also booked to play the Austin City Limits Music Festival itself.
Sandoval Stands Apart From the Festival Crossover Crowd
Arturo Sandoval is the lone artist among the five not scheduled to appear at the festival, making his booking a traditional broadcast-only slot rather than a festival tie-in. The Cuban-born trumpeter, who defected from Cuba in 1990 with support from mentor Dizzy Gillespie, is a 10-time Grammy winner, a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and a 2024 Kennedy Center Honoree, according to the Houston Symphony. He's expected to perform songs from his new album “Sangú” during his September 25 taping.
Jesse Welles, meanwhile, makes his Austin City Limits debut on October 8 after releasing his latest album “Masks Off” in June. The Arkansas singer-songwriter built a national following through his 2024 “Under the Powerlines” series of outdoor acoustic videos, which have drawn nearly a billion views for their topical protest songs, per Farm Aid. Welles is set to play both Fridays of the festival.
Bleachers and Lola Young Bring Pop Star Wattage
Bleachers, led by 11-time Grammy-winning songwriter and producer Jack Antonoff, tapes October 11 and is expected to perform songs from its new album “Everyone For Ten Minutes.” Antonoff's production and songwriting resume includes major releases for Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and Lorde, according to AllMusic. The band plays both Saturdays of the festival.
British singer Lola Young tapes October 9 and is expected to play songs from “This Wasn't Meant for You Anyway” and “I'm Only F—ing Myself.” Young previously performed at Rolling Stone's Future of Music showcase at ACL Live in March. Her single “Messy” went viral on TikTok and climbed to No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, cementing her rapid rise, per Grammy.com. Her taping follows a pop showcase Hoodline covered in July, when Olivia Rodrigo drew a similar frenzy for a taping at the same venue.
How to Actually Get In the Door
All of these tapings happen at ACL Live at the Moody Theater, the 2,750-seat downtown venue where no seat sits more than 70 feet from the stage. Free tickets are distributed through online lottery giveaways posted on Austin City Limits' social media pages roughly one week before each taping, with additional details available at acltv.com. Demand for these passes routinely dwarfs supply — Hoodline previously reported that the Olivia Rodrigo taping drew 64,000 lottery entries for just 2,000 available seats, underscoring how competitive the free giveaways have become.
This season also arrives as Austin City Limits shifts to funding entirely through local community support and donor contributions, following changes to federal public media funding in 2025, according to reporting cited by JamBase. That financial pivot places even more weight on Austin viewers and sponsors to keep the free tapings running. It's a reminder that behind the star-studded lineups, the show's survival now leans heavily on the same local audience competing for its tickets.
The broader Austin City Limits brand's civic footprint extends beyond the broadcast, too. Proceeds from the annual Austin City Limits Music Festival, funneled through the Austin Parks Foundation, generated $8.5 million in 2026 for playground builds, trail repairs and park projects across all 10 Austin City Council districts, Hoodline previously reported. With the festival's first weekend arriving alongside these new tapings, the twin threads of live television history and local park funding are once again converging on downtown Austin this fall.
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