AUSTIN (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — The Austin City Limits Music Festival is looking to prevent the extremely dry conditions that turned last year’s event into a Dust Bowl, as Capital Sports and Enttertainment has teamed up with the city to install a sprinkler system to irrigate Zilker Park.
The three-phase, three-year project will run sprinklers and water fountains through the park’s fields. Once complete, the system will pump fresh water for the drinking fountains and water from Town Lake for the sprinklers.
“The city of Austin Parks and Recreation Department has been wanting to do this. When CSE learned of that and offer to pay for half of that, it made it possible for the department to go ahead and move forward with the project,” parks department spokesperson Victor Ovalle told News 8 Austin.
“With the dust problem from last year, we said ‘We’re committed, we’ll help with it, and we’ll pay half of it,’” CSE’s Lisa Schickel said.
The overall cost will be between $500,000 and $700,000 total.
“People travel from all over the world to [the ACL Music Festival]. So it’s not something that we take lightly. We really care about the people that attend, we care about this event for the city, we care about Austin and we care about Zilker Park. So there was really no other question,” Schickel explained.
This year’s Austin City Limits Music Festival will pack Zilker Park from September 15th to the 17th. Over 130 acts have been listed on the bill for the eight-stage, three-day blowout, including the Raconteurs, Gnarls Barkley, the Flaming Lips, Tom Petty, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Ben Harper, Massive Attack, Matisyahu, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, the String Cheese Incident, KT Tunstall, Son Volt, Wolf Parade, New Orleans Social Club, G. Love & Special Sauce, Kings of Leon, Damien Rice, the New Pornographers, and many many many more. –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
