The biggest concerts, games and shows coming up — refreshed twice daily.
A production corridor stretches from Austin's anchor stages through Bastrop's new 600-acre complex and into the hill country — eight soundstages going hot, half a million square feet under roof, and crew rosters deeper than any market between the coasts. This is the trade publication.
The 18th Austin Asian American Film Festival runs June 24–28 at the AFS Cinema, and its most talked-about title is a Texas story. Journalist-turned-filmmaker Karla Murthy builds her debut feature from home movies and recorded late-night phone calls — a portrait of her father, who went from an education and a career in India to the overnight shift behind the counter of a Texas gas station.
“Devastating and beautiful… endlessly surprising.”
It world-premiered at Sheffield DocFest with a Grand Jury Special Mention and was named a Centerpiece Documentary at CAAMFest 2026. The film screens Sunday, June 28 at AFS Cinema with a Q&A — a rare, intimate look at how a documentary this personal gets made, set squarely in the Central Texas the rest of this desk covers.
Full festival guide →Founded by producer Alton Butler of Los Angeles–based equipment house Line 204, the 204 Texas campus broke ground in early 2026 on a nearly 600-acre site east of Austin. The build calls for roughly half a million square feet of soundstage and support, eight stages in operation by Q2 2026, plus on-site residences designed to keep crews close to the work.
A second Bastrop project — Wyldwood Studios, a 75-acre, $100M development spearheaded by actor Zachary Levi — is moving in parallel. Together, local economic forecasts put a ten-year impact in the range of $1.3 billion.
Dollies, jibs, cranes, truss, speed-rail, overhead rigging. The skeleton under every set-up — and Texas is grip-rich.
Vendors & pros →Gaffer's department: HMIs, LED skypanels, tungsten, gen ops, distro. Twelve hundred amps on a 53-foot trailer is a routine day.
Vendors & pros →Boom, lavs, multitrack mixers, comms. ENG-fast or feature-deep — Austin has both flavors of mixer on rotation.
Vendors & pros →ALEXA, VENICE, RED — plus the data-management workflows that keep dailies moving from card to colorist.
Vendors & pros →Production design, set decoration, props, scenic, construction. Period-correct Texana to soft-sci-fi futures.
Vendors & pros →Costume design, supervision, set costumers, alterations, fittings. Vintage western to contemporary streetwear in one truck.
Vendors & pros →Beauty, character, prosthetic, blood gags. Texas has the heat — and crews who know how to keep a look through a 14-hour day.
Vendors & pros →Scouts, managers, assistants, permitting. Every road from Lockhart to Llano has been a Texas backdrop at one time or another.
Vendors & pros →Picture vehicles, crew vans, 10-ton, 5-ton, water, fuel. Captains, co-captains, drivers, mechanics — moving the show.
Vendors & pros →On-set VFX supervision, plates, witness cams, virtual production volumes, color, sound mix, finishing.
Vendors & pros →UPMs, line producers, coordinators, APOC, PA's. The paper trail and the radio chatter that hold the day together.
Vendors & pros →Stunt coordinators, riggers, fire, weapons, animal wranglers, on-set medics. Texas runs hard — safety runs harder.
Vendors & pros →▍ Trade jurisdiction across Texas studios is largely held by IATSE Local 484 — the Studio Mechanics Local of Texas & Oklahoma.
The Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program (TMIIIP), run by the Texas Film Commission, is a cash grant calculated against qualifying Texas spend on feature film, television, commercial, and digital projects. Tier and uplift bumps push the ceiling toward roughly 31% in the most favorable cases.
Productions that qualify at the state level can layer the Austin Creative Content Incentive Program as supplemental city-level support — money that moves through the Austin Film Commission and the City of Austin's economic development office.
Open the program brief →