Pavement, TV on the Radio and Mastodon to Headline Austin’s Levitation Festival

American metal band Mastodon will join influential Brooklyn indie rockers TV on the Radio and 1990s alt- rock icons Pavement to headline this year’s Levitation festival, alongside reunited sludge metal band Acid Bath, Built to Spill, the Brian Jonestown Massacre and more.

Launched in 2008 by Austin band The Black Angels to celebrate the resurgence of psychedelic rock and the formation of the label The Reverberation Appreciation Society or RVRB, the festival is now part of a partnership with Austin promoter Resound Presents, led by Graham Williams.

This year Levitation is moving to the festival grounds at the Palmer Events Center, in addition to nightly venue programming across Austin’s Downtown Red River District. Located on the shores of Town Lake overlooking the Austin skyline, the Palmer Events Center includes a massive 75,000 square foot environment for the indoor stage and a huge canvas for the artists on stage with 360 lighting and visuals, day or night. The indoor experience is accompanied by an outdoor stage set to a backdrop of lush trees and the Austin skyline. The new venue offers amenities like an air-conditioned common space, indoor experience for the main stage, ample outdoor green space, plenty of room to stretch out and hang, and an immersive setting for the music and visual experience.

“The idea to use Palmer Events Center goes all the way back to 2011. I was riding my bike home from the cleanup day after that year’s festival at Seaholm Power Plant—our first and last year there before the site was redeveloped into convos and office spaces,” says Levitation’s co-founders Rob Fitzpatrick. “I took a detour through the park and stopped by Palmer. I’d been there before, but never seriously considered it as a festival site. That day I peeked inside and saw the massive indoor space and canopy around it and thought, ‘Damn, this would be perfect.’

The new home means larger acts can play the weekend festival, and Levitation’s Night Shows will continue to offer intimate club experiences downtown, celebrating the independent music scene—from up-and-comers to national headliners.

“When the 2016 edition at Carson Creek Ranch was canceled due to weather, it was a huge setback—we didn’t get a full insurance payout and were left with serious debt,” Fitzpatrick says. “So it was a disaster but the silver lining of the weekend was the way that the Austin music community and venues stepped up. They moved shows, shifted schedules, let us rebook shows in their clubs and helped save the weekend for fans. That experience sparked an idea: instead of building a temporary city in a remote location without infrastructure – and exposed to the weather – at the ranch, what if we brought the whole thing into downtown—with intention? That became the blueprint from 2018 to 2024.”

With this new chapter, Ftizpatrick says the fest was “finally able to merge both models. Palmer gives us the space, infrastructure, and production capabilities to bring back a larger-scale, multi-stage experience—and thanks to its downtown location, we can still collaborate with the Red River venues that have been the heart of the festival in recent years. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Passes for Levitation 2025 are now on sale, and night show tickets can be purchased separately here.

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