LEVITATION 2026: Our First Time

Sep 22

Written By Paola

We’ve made our way down to Texas again and although we will be here for ACL 2026, this time it was for a festival Ultra5280 had yet to cover. Austin’s very own LEVITATION is made up of bands from around the world including the sounds of indie, psych rock, punk, hardcore and sprinkles of anything you can find in the middle. All this jamming took place in the Red River District and other venues nearby making this event a literal Austin wide music festival. Imagine playing that epic pinball game on your family computer, it was just like that.

From Thursday to Sunday, LEVITATION provided 4 days of nonstop sets from artists like Die Spitz, Molchat Doma, Sleep, Angine de Poitrine, Bikini Kill, Arlo Parks and so much more. Local venues like Far Out Lounge, 29th St Ballroom, Mohawk, Stubbs and others housed these sets including a very purple Marshall x Hendrix activation inside Mohawk.

Belarusian band now residing in LA, **Molchat Doma** dominating the crowd Saturday night (Photo Credit: Paola Miano)

American punk rock band, **Bikini Kill** (Photo Credit: Paola Miano)

**Sleep** on Sunday night (Photo Credit: Robert Hein)

Originally slated for this year’s main venue to be at Radio/East, LEVITATION moved those acts to The Far Out Lounge on the south side of Austin instead. The Far Out Lounge is no stranger to LEVITATION so fans were not let down upon hearing the news. This venue is like a huge backyard with a main stage and a smaller stage. Each stage took turns hosting sets so there was never a conflict. A delicious pizza truck and several outside bars were also on site to ensure patrons would not go thirsty or hungry.

Crowd on Day 1 at The Far Out Lounge (Photo Credit: Paola Miano)

Although the event planning was practically perfect, Austin had other plans and showed us some late summer showers. Festival goers were elated to experience a relief from the heat while enjoying a cooler breeze for the rest of the night.

Just as the rain brought relieving smiles, so did the outfits. From legit mohawks, the biggest Doc Martens platforms you could find to the grungiest set of clothingmI personally have ever seen, I knew I should have brought an extra SD card to capture the fashion on top of everything else.

My personal favorite sets were Baird, Die Spitz, Molchat Doma, Ditz and Lunar Vacation. Best venues in my opinion throughout the weekend were definitely 29th street ballroom for their use of projected graphics and Mohawk for their interesting tiered seating. I also can’t stress enough how incredible the Marshall x Hendrix activation was inside Mohawk.

At the end of the rainbow though, comes Sunday, and in this case means the festival has concluded. We had the absolute best time at LEVITATION and can’t wait to see what the 2027 line up has in store for us.