Austin events this week

Where to go in Austin: events, concerts, games and shows worth your night

Austin calls itself the live music capital of the world and can back it up: more than two hundred stages, a festival in March that takes over the whole city and another in October that fills a park, a lakeside arena that brought the big tours, and a night that runs down Sixth Street, Red River and South Congress until the bars close. Below is where to go in Austin for a night out, with addresses, and what tends to be on when.

Concerts and live music in Austin: Red River, South Congress and the Moody Center

ACL Live at the Moody Theater (310 W Willie Nelson Boulevard, acl-live.com) is the room where the TV show is taped, 2,700 seats downtown; Stubb’s (801 Red River Street) has the outdoor amphitheater and the barbecue; the Continental Club (1315 S Congress Avenue) has had bands on seven nights a week since 1955. Red River Street between Sixth and Twelfth is a dozen venues in four blocks, Mohawk and Empire among them. Arena tours play the Moody Center (2001 Robert Dedman Drive) on the university campus, and Germania Insurance Amphitheater by the racetrack takes the summer sheds.

Austin nightlife: Sixth Street, Rainey Street and the East Side

Sixth Street is the loud one, closed to cars at weekends; Rainey Street the bars in converted bungalows; East Austin, across the freeway, the venues, cocktail bars and food trucks where the city now goes out. South Congress is for the early evening. Bars close at 2 a.m., and the city is compact enough that a scooter gets you between districts.

Theater, comedy and classical music in Austin

The Long Center (701 W Riverside Drive) on the south bank holds the Austin Symphony, Austin Opera and Ballet Austin, and the Paramount Theater on Congress Avenue the touring comedy and the film festival. Esther’s Follies on Sixth Street has done its variety show since 1977, and Cap City Comedy Club brings the touring stand-ups.

Sports in Austin

Texas Longhorns football at Darrell K Royal Stadium is the city’s religion, seven Saturdays a fall; Austin FC plays Q2 Stadium from February to October, one of the best atmospheres in the league; the Longhorns’ basketball moved to the Moody Center; and the Circuit of the Americas hosts the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix in October.

Museums and galleries in Austin

The Blanton Museum of Art (200 E Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard) on campus is free on Tuesdays and has Ellsworth Kelly’s chapel; the Contemporary Austin runs two sites, downtown on Congress Avenue and the Laguna Gloria estate on the lake. The East Austin Studio Tour opens hundreds of studios in November.

Austin festivals and events by season

• Winter: the Austin Marathon in February, and Free Week on Red River in early January, when the venues drop the cover.
• Spring: South by Southwest, ten days of music, film and technology across the whole city in March, and Austin FC’s season opening.
• Summer: Blues on the Green in Zilker Park, Fourth of July at Auditorium Shores, and the Zilker Hillside Theater’s free musical.
• Fall: Austin City Limits Music Festival, two weekends in Zilker Park in October; the Formula 1 weekend at COTA; and the East Austin Studio Tour in November.

Things to do in Austin tonight and this weekend

The listings above are the live version of all this: every concert, show, game, club night and exhibition on in Austin tonight, tomorrow and this weekend, with times, prices and tickets, updated every hour.