Axios Austin

May 06, 2026
Hello, Wednesday.
π§οΈ Today's weather: Slight chance of showers and thunderstorms, with a high nearing 90.
π΄ Situational awareness: Parents and students will gather at Armadillo Neighborhood Park in South Austin at 7 am today before biking to Odom Elementary School, in honor of National Bike and Roll to School Day.
- See if your local school is hosting its own bike-to-school event here.
Today's newsletter is 1,030 words β a 4-minute read.
1 big thing: ACL Fest unveils lineup
Time to flip your calendar to October and picture where your koozies are packed away β organizers of the Austin City Limits Music Festival have released this year's musical lineup.
Driving the news: Charli XCX, RΓΌfΓΌs Du Sol and Lorde are among the headliners of the two-weekend festival, organizers announced yesterday.
- Tickets for both weekends β Oct. 2-4 and Oct. 9-11 β are now on sale. Three-day GA tickets sold out for weekend one by yesterday afternoon. Three-day tickets for weekend two start at $365.
Flashback: The Zilker Park-based festival started 25 years ago as a two-day event featuring many local bands and singer-songwriters and dominated by indie rock and Americana, reflecting the DNA of its namesake TV show.
The big picture: ACL Fest is now the city's fall anchor festival, helping buoy the local economy just as South by Southwest does in March.
- Last year's festival contributed $557.8 million to the Austin economy, per a report by event organizer C3 Presents.
- Musical genres now include pop, hip hop and electronic.
Zoom in: This year's headliners also include the genre-bending duo Twenty One Pilots and minimalist British indie pop band The xx.
- DJ and producer Skrillex will perform weekend one, and Kings of Leon will perform weekend two.
Other notable acts include:
- Baltimore hardcore punk breakout Turnstile
- Genre-bending British producer and singer Labrinth
- Grammy award-winner Lola Young
- Chart-topping EDM-pop duo The Chainsmokers
- Brooklyn indie rock band Geese
- Puerto Rican Latin trap star Young Miko
- Jack Antonoff's New Jersey rock band Bleachers
- Philadelphia rock band The War on Drugs
The intrigue: A notable share of this year's lineup aren't new to Zilker Park.
- Several headliners β including Kings of Leon, Skrillex and Lorde β are returning to ACL after previous appearances.
Between the lines: Some fans had speculated that Olivia Rodrigo β one of the few Gen Z artists with true stadium-level pop draw β could land atop this year's bill.
- Instead, the lineup leans toward alt-pop and genre-spanning headliners without a single blockbuster pop star.
π¬ Let us know: Which of the ACL acts are you most interested in hearing?
- Just reply to this message.
2. π Women MBAs are still outearned by men


The pay gap between high-earning millennial and Gen Z men and women is shrinking compared with earlier generations.
Why it matters: Women are doing it by working longer hours and staying in the workforce, rather than taking timeouts for child care, per a new working paper by scholars at the University of California, Berkeley.
By the numbers: Thirteen years out of school, women who earned their MBA before 2006, on average, earned more than $100,000 less a year than their male counterparts. (If you take stock options and other equity grants into account, the gap gets even wider.)
- For younger folks, at the 13-year point, the difference is just $34,000.
Zoom in: The class of 2025 at the University of Texas' McCombs School of Business was 35% female and 65% male, a UT official tells Axios. Their average overall salary is $154,000 β UT doesn't disclose the information by gender.
- The class of 2005 was 23% female and 77% male.
The big picture: The paper is an update on landmark research that found the pay disparity starts revving up over time, as more women see their careers interrupted by motherhood or reduce their hours to deal with child care.
What they're saying: "The only reason women are being paid less ... is because they are women," says Noor Sethi, a Ph.D. candidate at Berkeley who co-authored the new paper.
3. π€ The Roundup: Wrangling the news
π§ City Council Member JosΓ© "Chito" Vela backed away from pushing for more city funding to build parks over Interstate 35 amid ongoing debate over the highway project's future. (KUT)
β‘ Austin ISD earned $2 million in energy-efficiency rebates from Austin Energy. (CBS Austin)
πΈ LakeFusion, an Austin-based data management platform raised $7.5 million in seed funding, signaling continued investor interest in local startups. (Axios)
4. π Sound off on I-35 pain points
Texas wants you to weigh in on the future of Interstate 35 from Laredo to the Texas-Oklahoma border.
π Driving the news: The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is creating a study of the corridor to tackle its challenges through 2050.
- A survey, open through tomorrow, allows you to place markers on a map where you find traffic concerns, connectivity or maintenance issues, or even problems for bikers and pedestrians (really).
Sample comment: "Too many lanes!"
The big picture: Regardless of what happens with the survey, TxDOT is moving forward with its massive expansion of I-35 through Austin.
π Our thought bubble: Drivers seem surprisingly kind in their comments in comparison with the maddening reality of traveling on I-35.
5. π§’ 1 baseball hat to go
π§β𦲠Asher here, your intrepid vintage goods correspondent.
The big picture: Being thin of hair, I'm always on the lookout for a good baseball hat to keep my pate protected.
State of play: I spotted this cap (βοΈ) this week at Howdy's, a vintage store in East Austin, off Manor Road.
- It's awesome in its wordiness (try saying "delayed coker safety, quality and productivity" three times fast); fantastic in its ugliness; effectively unique; personally relatable, since I once worked in an Alaskan oil refinery.
- Price tag: $20.
Yes, but: It fell into the category of clothing item you kinda want but can't or won't quite pull off β in this case, just a shade too hipster-industrial-Nascar.
The intrigue: Instead I opted to buy an old Bell telephone sweater ($34) that each of my little kids can grow into.
- "Reach Out and Touch Someone," it says beneath rainbow striping, part of an advertising campaign dating to the late 1970s.

The bottom line: As corporate paraphernalia goes, it's less aesthetically brazen and more cozy than that Exxon option.
Thanks to Astrid GalvΓ‘n and Bob Gee for editing this newsletter.
π· Asher is watching this classic King Tut takeoff.
π Nicole can't wait to see Charli XCX and Lorde at ACL.
Sign up for Axios Austin








