Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival returns September 26-27, 2026, at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas, per the festival's official site, with the announcement reported March 30, 2026. It is the seventh Crossroads festival and the first since the 2023 Los Angeles edition. The lineup Clapton hosts is effectively a census of living guitar heroes: Buddy Guy, Billy Gibbons, Pete Townshend, John Mayer, Joe Bonamassa, Gary Clark Jr., Trey Anastasio, Tommy Emmanuel, John McLaughlin, Keb' Mo', Marcus King, Sierra Hull, Sonny Landreth, Robert Randolph, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Tedeschi Trucks members, per the official roster.
Why does this festival matter to guitarists?
Because Crossroads is the rare festival programmed entirely around the instrument. Where general rock bills treat the guitar solo as a leftover, Crossroads books players across genres — blues, rock, country, acoustic fingerstyle, jazz — on one bill, which makes it one of the few places a single weekend surveys the whole state of the art. The 2023 edition ran in Los Angeles; the 2026 move to Austin, per the official announcement, puts the event in a city with its own guitar tradition and a purpose-built arena in the Moody Center.
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What does this change for players?
Tickets, mostly, and quickly. Crossroads editions have historically been one-weekend events with no repeat dates, and the official on-sale information is posted at crossroadsguitarfestival.com. For players who cannot attend, the practical value arrives afterward: Crossroads sets are heavily documented, and past editions produced performance footage that became reference material for a generation of players. A weekend this dense also moves gear interest — the players on this bill are signature-model artists whose instruments see demand spikes after high-profile appearances, so expect used-market prices on associated models to firm up in October.
What detail did most coverage miss?
The breadth beyond the headliners. Coverage naturally leads with Clapton, Guy, and Mayer, but the undercard is where the festival earns its keep for serious players: Tommy Emmanuel's fingerstyle technique, Sierra Hull's mandolin virtuosity, John McLaughlin's jazz legacy, and Kurt Rosenwinkel's modern jazz voice share stages with blues names. That mix is the whole point of the festival — and it is a syllabus. A player who watches the full 2026 roster's sets walks away with a tour of nearly every major living approach to the instrument.