# Things to Do in Austin, TX: Your September 2026 Guide

> Things to do in Austin this September 2026: Bat Fest, LEVITATION, Longhorns home games, free museum day. Picked by Austin real estate agent Mike Vilece.

Mike Vilece · September 1, 2026
Canonical page: https://theaustinlocalgroup.com/blog/things-to-do-austin-september-2026/

September in Austin is that strange, welcome stretch where the calendar says fall but the thermometer has not gotten the memo. The good news is that the events do not wait for the weather to cool off. The bats are still putting on a show, the music season is picking back up, and there is a full slate of festivals worth leaving the air-conditioned house for. I went digging through the local calendars so you would not have to, and these are the things to do in Austin in September 2026 that actually caught my eye. As always, double check the times and ticketing before you head out, since a few of these shift around.

## Free and outdoors

**September 5, 3:00 PM to 11:00 PM** | Bat Fest at the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge. The world's largest urban bat colony gets its own party, with live music, food vendors, and the nightly flight itself somewhere around dusk. If you would rather skip the festival ticket, you can always watch the bats emerge for free from the bridge or the lawn below on any warm evening this month.

**September 12** | Viva Mexico at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. A free celebration of Mexican Independence with visual art, dance, and live performances. Check the site to confirm the hours before you go.

**September 12 and 13** | Fall Pecan Street Festival in the Sixth Street Historic District. Austin's long running arts and crafts festival takes over downtown twice a year, and this is the fall edition. Free to wander, with local vendors, artists, food, and live music.

**September 20** | Austin Museum Day, various locations. Participating museums and cultural sites across town open their doors for free. A low commitment way to finally see the one place you keep meaning to visit.

**September 22** | HAAM Benefit Day, citywide. Hundreds of local musicians play free shows across dozens of venues to support the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians. You get the music, the musicians get healthcare. A rare deal where everybody wins.

## Live music and shows

**September 3** | Koe Wetzel at the Moody Center. The Texas country and rock crossover brings his crowd downtown to kick off the month.

**September 6** | Brandi Carlile at the Moody Center. Expect the kind of vocal that quiets a room of that size.

**September 10 to 13** | LEVITATION Fest across the Red River District and East Austin. Four days of psych rock, punk, darkwave, and electronic spread across Stubb's, Mohawk, Hotel Vegas, and more. A festival built for people who like their venues small and their lineups deep.

**September 10** | Tim McGraw at the Moody Center, for the country fans keeping score.

**September 13** | Chance the Rapper at the Moody Amphitheater, playing under the open sky at Waterloo Park.

**September 14** | J. Cole at the Moody Center.

**September 22** | Weird Al Yankovic, Bigger and Weirder Tour, at the Moody Center. Proof that accordion based parody has real staying power.

**September 24** | Jungle at the Moody Center, if you want to dance more than you stand still.

## Longhorns at home

**September 5, 2:30 PM** | Texas vs Texas State at Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium. The Longhorns open the home slate. Expect burnt orange from I-35 to campus and a parking situation to match.

**September 12, 6:30 PM** | Texas vs Ohio State at Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium. A rematch with real weight to it. If you are anywhere near campus that evening, plan your routes early.

**September 19, 7:00 PM** | Texas vs UTSA at Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium. The third straight home Saturday, and a friendlier ticket if you want the stadium experience without the marquee matchup price. Texas heads to Tennessee on September 26, so the home stretch pauses after this one. Kickoff times can move with the TV window, so confirm before you head over.

## Later in the month

**September 17 to 24** | Fantastic Fest at the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar. Billed as the largest genre film festival in the country, this is a full week of horror, sci fi, and the delightfully strange, with a beer in your cupholder the whole time.

**September 26 and 27** | Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival at the Moody Center. The festival makes its first Austin stop, gathering a rotating cast of guitar players over two nights.

**Looking just past the horizon** | Austin City Limits Music Festival returns to Zilker Park across two weekends, October 2 to 4 and October 9 to 11. If you are an ACL person, September is when you sort out tickets, transit, and which day is worth the sunscreen.

## For the family

**Any clear evening** | The bats at the Congress Avenue Bridge. No ticket required most nights. Show up before sunset, find a spot on the bridge or the grass, and watch roughly a million and a half of them pour out into the dusk. It never really gets old, and it is a hard fact to beat for a weeknight with kids.

**September 12 and 13** | Fall Pecan Street Festival, Sixth Street Historic District. Free, walkable, and stocked with food and crafts. Easy to bring the whole crew and easy to leave when the little ones hit their limit.

**September 20** | Austin Museum Day. Free admission at museums across town makes this a friendly day to let curious kids pick where you land.

## A note from me

I spend most of my working hours thinking about neighborhoods, which means I pay a little too much attention to what makes each pocket of this city worth living in. Lay this month's calendar over a map and you get a decent read on Austin. The bats and the Pecan Street Festival are [downtown](/neighborhoods/downtown-austin/) in 78701. LEVITATION runs from the Red River clubs out into [East Austin](/neighborhoods/east-austin/) and 78702. Fantastic Fest sits at the Alamo on South Lamar, which is [South Austin](/neighborhoods/south-austin/) and 78704, the same 78704 that ACL swallows whole at Zilker a few weeks later. Home football Saturdays belong to 78705 and anything within walking distance of campus.

That pattern is worth saying out loud if you are relocating to Austin, because what people are really buying here is proximity. Being twenty minutes from a bat colony, a film festival, and a free museum day in the same week is a genuine feature of a house, and it never shows up in the square footage. It is also why two homes with the same floor plan can price very differently four miles apart.

I am Mike Vilece, an Austin real estate agent with Compass. Whether you are buying a home in Austin, thinking about selling your Austin home, or just want to know what your home is worth right now, I am happy to talk it through. No pitch, no pressure. The [Austin housing market](/austin-housing-market/) page carries the current numbers, updated monthly, and I will tell you honestly which Austin neighborhoods fit and which ones do not, even when the honest answer costs me the sale.

See you out there.

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