The Austin City Limits Festival 2009 is notorious for great concerts, scorching hot Texas temperatures, and this year – a giant mudpit. The following is a photo essay chronicling how the brand new multi million dollar lawn at Zilker Park became one giant soupy mess in the 3 days between Oct 2 – Oct 4, 2009.

The Austin City Limits festival begins with it’s new grass on Friday at around 4pm

Blue skies and a thick, carpet-like grass in front of the Livestrong stage

Concert Goers take a break between shows on the lawn

Blue skies above the ACL wind vane sign inside the park.

Day 2 – the rains begin, and they are HEAVY

Day 2- The lawn starts to get a bit brown – but it’s still OK

Day 3 – the soil from underneath the lawn seeps up and it’s really soupy

The areas close to the stages become mosh pits full of standing water and trash

Some don’t seem to mind the conditions and take full advantage of the situation

This area is what I referred to as the Shamu Splash Zone

These shoes promptly went in the trash after the festival!

Final Note – even though the lawn looks like it was totally trashed, the officials at Zilker Park were able to salvage about 98% of it. The park reopens today, Oct 30th 2009!