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Charles Attal, co-founder and partner of C3 Presents
Photo: Texas Cultural Trust

Festivals

Charles Attal

Co-founder and partner, C3 Presents

Company metric · Trade-reported

450,000

Attendance at Austin City Limits Music Festival, produced by C3 Presents

2025

The Austin American-Statesman reported that the 2025 Austin City Limits Music Festival drew 75,000 attendees a day across its two three-day weekends, a total of 450,000, citing the event's own economic-impact study. It counts festival attendance for the company Attal co-founded and partners in, not personal income.

Source: Austin American-Statesman — ACL Fest contributed $558M to Austin economy in 2025: report (retrieved 2026-09-16)

Hero metrics are sourced, person-specific measures of live-music economic footprint. Company metrics are labelled as company metrics; no synthetic score is used.

C3 Presents co-founder whose career connects Austin promotion, Stubb's, Austin City Limits Music Festival and Lollapalooza.

Last updated 2026-09-13

In short

Charles Attal is Co-founder and partner at C3 Presents. Helped build the festival portfolio that now sits inside the Live Nation group, and remains a partner in it. Charles Attal is a co-founder and partner of C3 Presents, the Austin-based promoter and festival producer behind Austin City Limits Music Festival and Lollapalooza.

Quick facts

Current role
Co-founder and partner
Organisation
C3 Presents
Primary category
Festivals
Known for
Co-founding C3 Presents; Austin City Limits Music Festival; Lollapalooza; Stubb's in Austin

Executive summary

Charles Attal is a co-founder and partner of C3 Presents, the Austin-based promoter and festival producer behind Austin City Limits Music Festival and Lollapalooza. Pollstar's 2026 Impact 50 recognises him jointly with his C3 partners, which reflects how the company is run: as a partnership rather than around a single principal.

His route into the business ran through Austin venue operation, including Stubb's, before the festival business took its present shape. That sequence matters to how C3 works. A company built by people who have operated rooms tends to treat production, site logistics and local relationships as first-order problems rather than as vendor questions.

C3 now sits inside the Live Nation group, and its festivals are therefore part of the largest live-entertainment portfolio in the world. Attal's current standing is as a partner in that company — a position distinct from ownership of the festivals themselves, which the Live Index industry register records separately.

Why Charles Attal matters in live music

Two of the most significant festivals in the United States pass through decisions Attal participates in. Festival ownership, production and promotion are separate relationships, and the register keeps them apart; but the people who programme and produce an event at this scale set what a major American festival costs to attend and who plays it.

The C3 story is also the clearest single case of the 2010s consolidation wave Live Index documents: an independent Austin promoter becoming part of a global corporate group while continuing to operate under its own name.

Career record

  1. CurrentCo-founder and partner of C3 Presents, recognised in Pollstar's 2026 Impact 50 alongside Amy Corbin and Charlie Walker.
  2. 2026Appeared in Pollstar Live keynote coverage discussing the state of the festival and promotion business.
  3. CareerAustin venue operation, including Stubb's, preceded and ran alongside the growth of C3's festival business.

Sphere of influence

Levels are categorical — Core, Major, Significant, Limited — and each is stated with the evidence it rests on. No numeric score is published, because none would be defensible.

Festivals
Core
Partner in the company that produces Austin City Limits Music Festival and Lollapalooza.
Concert promotion
Major
C3 Presents is an active promoter as well as a festival producer.
Venues
Significant
Austin venue operation, including Stubb's, is part of his documented record.
Regional reach — Austin and Texas
Core
C3's origin and continuing base is Austin, where its flagship event is held.
Ticketing
Limited
No ticketing platform ownership is documented; C3's events are ticketed by third-party platforms.

Entity relationships

Current

Timeline

  1. CareerAustin venue operation, including Stubb's.
  2. CareerCo-founded C3 Presents; the company's festival portfolio grew to include Austin City Limits Music Festival and Lollapalooza.
  3. 2026Recognised in Pollstar's Impact 50 alongside his C3 partners.

Related Live Index research and records

References and sources