ACL Festival

The strains of ACL Fest

$100 parking spaces -- but oh, to be close to the jamming

Jim LeMond has a prime piece of real estate this weekend: His Barton Springs Saloon at Lamar Boulevard and Barton Springs Road is a short hike to the Austin City Limits Music Festival, which kicked off its three-day run Friday in Zilker Park.

LeMond is turning the bar into a cash cow, selling three-day parking passes for $100 apiece.

Ricardo Brazziell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN

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Cee-Lo Green, singer of Gnarls Barkley, performs on the AT&T stage at the 2006 ACL at Zilker Park on Friday September 15, 2006.

More from the Fest

• Photo gallery
• Ray Lamontagne sings at sunset
• Live scene reports, band reviews
• Full coverage

Ricardo Brazziell
AMERICAN-STATESMAN

(enlarge photo)

Latin Rock Band From Austin Texas Del Castillo lead singer Alex 'El Lobo' Ruiz performs at the Washington Mutual stage on Friday September 15, 2006 at the 2006 ACL Festival.

Jay Janner
AMERICAN-STATESMAN

(enlarge photo)

Jamie Koerner of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho cools off at the Sister Mister Tent at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Zilker Park on Friday Sept. 15, 2006.

He's sold all nine spaces. His carwash neighbor across the street has sold 10 slots at that price, with a free carwash thrown in.

"I did it out of necessity," LeMond said. "Besides, I'm just recouping what I will lose in business because my regulars won't be coming around."

He's not alone. The Austin Java Co. restaurant and other businesses near the park are charging $25 a day for festival-goers who want to be close to their cars instead of dealing with long lines for shuttles to cheaper downtown lots.

Parking has become a major headache at the fifth annual festival, which an estimated 65,000 people will attend each day. There's no on-site parking, access to nearby neighborhoods has been severely restricted, and police this year have gated off some of the grassy stretches along the MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) access road closest to the park that were crowded with cars during past festivals.

Aside from the parking snarls, the festival started on a positive note, with standout performances from hip-hop/pop duo Gnarls Barkley, the Matthew McConaughey-backed reggae band Mishka and local favorites Del Castillo. Today's scheduled highlights include the retro-rock band the Raconteurs, British electronica giants Massive Attack and outlaw country's favorite son, Willie Nelson.

Conditions on the opening day were kinder than those of last year, with light rain and cloud cover giving way to sunny skies and a high of 98 degrees — still hot, but hardly the dusty inferno of the 2005 festival. Several hundred people were treated for minor heat-related illnesses, festival officials said. Weather forecasters call for a 30 percent chance of rain today, with cloudy skies early, then becoming partly sunny, with a high near 93.

But parking and traffic are likely to be issues again today. For Rachel Contreras, 31, who paid $25 to park in the lot of a closed fast-food restaurant on Barton Springs Road, the price of parking was worth it.

"It's so easy this way," Contreras said. "Especially when you are leaving and it takes a long time to get on the shuttle."

Even the Austin High School band is getting in on the act. To raise money for equipment, the band will charge $15 for parking today at the high school, which is across Town Lake from Zilker.

There is a festival-sponsored shuttle pickup and drop-off location at Republic Square downtown.

But even on regular weekends, downtown parking is hard to find.

By 4:30 p.m. Friday, about 17,000 people had gone through the 20-minute, snakelike line at Republic Square to board the Capital Metro shuttles.

On Friday, the drop-off spot was also home to the Diez y Seis festival and was crowded with cars from the thousands of downtown workers. This morning, the Capitol Rotunda will host the public viewing for former Gov. Ann Richards at the same time that Austin school district bands gather for a parade down Congress Avenue to celebrate the district's 125th anniversary.

Festival-goers won't be able to park in nearby neighborhoods, where main access streets have been blocked. Residents are using lesser-known back routes to get to their homes.

"We had residents complain last year that their driveways were blocked, and so many of them rely on street parking anyway," said Kathie Tovo, the president of the Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association. "We figure people who aren't familiar with the neighborhood won't know those back ways to get in."

lrockwell@statesman.com; 445-3819

Additional material from staff writers Joe Gross and Patrick George.