Musical Entertainment varies in genre. Great event for the whole family. Limited tickets sold, keeps crowd to a minimum, easy to navigate. Excellent viewing, no matter where you setup your seating. Free camping onsite included with ticket....bonus! I'm a Utopian and always will be! read more

The perfect music festival! I tuned out all mega-fests years ago in search of those with no pretensions and 10 yrs later UtopiaFest is still my thing. read more

The question I get most often about Utopiafest is "where is Utopia, Texas?" Well, it's about 3 hours southwest of Austin in some of the prettiest country you've ever seen. This is the music festival all music festivals should aspire to. Sure, I love the hyper-organization of ACL, FFF, etc but this feels like what festivals used to be -- a carefree good time with enough space for everyone, a lot of goodwill, no phone service and a BYO everything. It's like your best friends had some land and decided to throw a party for 1800 of their closest. We bought the Thursday early bird camper passes to get in and grab a perfect spot. Our friends tent camped around us and every day we woke up to beautiful sunshine, bird song, breakfast tacos off my boyfriends camper stove, a hammock forest, live music, frisbee playing, hiking, swimming in garner state park and zero ability to get to the outside world. Those three days were truly relaxing. Specific to the actual festival, they host all kinds of bands -- soul, funk, country, rock, americana. They cap tickets at 1800 people so you actually get to SEE the bands you like. And it's so casual -- like, grab your camping chair, park it near the stage, drink the beer that you brought (that you didnt have to pay $10 for) and chill while experiencing your faves in action. After 2am, there's a silent disco that is hilarious/bizarre/amazing to watch. Everyone is having their own private silent dance party to the head phone channel they choose while campers slumber peacefully around them. If you have to pick an out of town festival to go to, it should be this one. read more

What if Burning Man and ACL festival had a baby and rather than limiting the offspring to 70,000 or 40,000 tickets they limited it to just barely 2,000 people? You would have Utopiafest. Both these hugely famous festivals allow children. And both have started off in tiny, humble beginnings where only a few rogue hippies knew about them and over the years have grown to this massive monstrosity where everybody wears logo t-shirts into places like Whole Foods and Stubb's. And just like those two former festivals you will have no cell service at Utopiafest. So get ready to get dirty, and disconnect. Utopiafest is technically 2 solid nights of live music each September where you don't have to pick which band you want to see because they rotate each band between 2 stages. Check out the previous years line up! Pretty stellar stuff. Music starts at 4PM on Friday and 12noonish on Saturday and runs until around 1AM. Beyond 1AM they have 'silent disco' which is where you don wireless headphones and pick between a few different dance stations and dance the night away with your fellow night owls. This runs until around 4AM. There is an early bird kick off night on Thursday where there are also a couple of bands playing (costs extra to come Thursday). Because the festival is capped at 2,000 people it almost feels like a private music fest in the woods. The actual grounds are a private ranch in Utopia. This area is GORGEOUS. Green, lush, with rolling hills. Welcome to the Hill Country. I have gone to Utopiafest for the past 2 years and the past 2 years it has POURED rain. The downside of this is that you will get wet, and the grounds will get muddy. The rain was so bad this year that on Friday they had to close the main stage and tons of people coming into the ranch on Friday evening had to park and walk because it was too flooded and muddy to drive in. This might make for a miserable experience for those of you who aren't too outdoorsy. For a small fee you can bring an RV or car camp. Most people tent camp. This year the festival offered to set up everything for you (tent, chair, blow up bed) for a couple hundred bucks and they chose the prime location in the camp for such spot. So if you don't want to haul gear you have options. Also, if you don't want to haul food they have pretty decent food trailers so bring cash as there are no ATM's. But FYI there are no electrical hook-ups so bring a generator or do without. Outdoor showers are available for $3. Another great option is to drive 20 mins to Garner State park and pay the entry fee to swim in the lovely Frio River and then use the showers there. This is a nice excursion to go on during the day. This year Utopiafest brought amazing bands, fireworks, disc golf, outdoor yoga, and a live band of 10 year olds (very kid friendly place). BYOB! They don't sell alcohol on site but they do have bottles of water for sale. This is a great day trip adventure from San Antonio/Austin. Just understand that there aren't any hotels around this wilderness. If you want to come see the music you've got to be all in on the outdoors thing. It will be worth it, promise! read more

See all

Great live music, beautiful surroundings, BYOB and there is NOT a mob scene of tight jeans! No, I am not talking about Austin 20 years ago...I am talking about Utopiafest! If you haven't been to this awesome Hill Country music festival, then you are really missing out. It is on a beautiful private ranch near Utopia/Garner State Park (about 2.5 hours from Austin) that is in a valley with hills on 3 sides. During it's 5 year run they have improved it every time and there are now over 40 bands playing on alternating stages constantly for 2.5 days. As if that wasn't enough, here are a few of the bonuses: -It is BYOB and you save a ton of money -Camping is free with the tickets -They always schedule it during a full moon -They get great bands of all genres of music -The Frio river is 20 minutes away so you can swim before music starts at noon(ish) -It is 10-15 degrees cooler than Austin -They ONLY sell 2000 tickets max so you can easily get right up to see your favorite band OR listen to them from your tent or RV. -There are great food truck options -Outdoor hot showers under the full moon and milky way -And did I mention it is BYOB!!! I am headed out to Utopiafest this weekend and it will be my 5th time going. I stumbled onto it by accident in year 2 when I saw a Yelp sponsored weekly email. Each year our crew has grown and there are 24 of us going together this year. I hope they never change the ticket cap because this is a real semi-hidden gem in Central Texas. read more

See all

Amazing festival!!! I loved everything but the heat so my wish would be a spring or late fall date. Tents turn into saunas by 10am during the summer after staying up all night listening to amazing music and driving to a lodge takes away from the experience. read more