Big Ears Festival 2023: Tickets, where to buy, lineup, where to buy, dates and more

The Big Ears Festival is celebrating its 10th iteration this year. The festival takes place in Knoxville, Tennessee and has been announced from March 30 to April 2, 2023.

Presale access for previous festival pass holders will begin on September 13, 2022 and the presale for fresh ticket buyers is currently underway. General passes will be available from The Big Ears website from September 14 At 9 am ET.

The festival is returning to Knoxville after a two-year long gap due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Big Ears offers three 4-day pass options, including General Admission, Premier, and Sonic Explorer VIP. All passes give access to the full weekend’s offerings of more than 150 concerts, a variety of talks, panel discussions, films, exhibitions, workshops, and other special events subject to capacity.

Big Ears also offers opportunities to volunteer at the festival in exchange for festival passes.

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Big Ears Festival 2023 Lineup

• Amadou & Mariam
• The Bad Plus
• Devendra Banhart
• Andrew Bird
• Calexico
• Grouper
• Ibeyi
• Iron & Wine
• Vijay Iyer
• Rickie Lee Jones
• Charles Lloyd
• Los Lobos
• Joe Lovano
• Christian Mcbride
• The Mountain Goats
• Pino Palladino & Blake Mills Ft. Sam Gendel & Abe Rounds
• Cécile Mclorin Salvant
• Antonio Sánchez & Bad Hombre
• Nate Smith + Kinfolk
• Tyshawn Sorey
• Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer, & Shahzad Ismaily (Love In Exile)
• Marc Ribot (Los Cubanos Postizos & The Jazz-Bins
• Sam Gendel (Concert Group & Duo With Sam Wilkes)
• Béla Fleck (My Bluegrass Heart With Michael Cleveland, Sierra Hull, Justin Moses, Mark Schatz, & Bryan Sutton)

• William Parker (Mayan Space Station & In Order To Survive)
• Edgar Meyer Trios (With Tessa Lark & Joshua Roman)
• Bill Frisell (Trio With Knoxville Symphony Orchestra & Bill Frisell Four)
• Mary Halvorson (Amaryllis & Belladonna)
• Makaya Mccraven (In These Times)
• The Music Of Eliane Radigue (Nate Wooley & Carol Robinson)
• The Music Of Annea Lockwood (Nate Wooley & Yarn/Wire)
• Steve Reich String Quartets (Mivos Quartet)
• The Music Of Catherine Lamb (Jack Quartet)
• John Zorn 70th Birthday Celebration
• Bagatelles Pt. 1 (Brian Marsella Trio & John Medeski Trio)
• Bagatelles Pt. 2 (Mary Halvorson Trio & Trigger)
• Chamber Music (Jack Quartet With Yura Lee, Michael Nicolas & Sae Hashimoto)
• Painkiller (John Zorn / Bill Laswell / Dave Lombardo)
• Cobra (Frisell / Halvorson / Greene / Marsella / Medeski / Nicolas / Dunn / Hanes / Hashimoto / Lombardo / Edgcomb / Wollesen)
• Gnostic Trio (Carol Emanuel / Bill Frisell / Kenny Wollesen)
• Nove Cantici (Bill Frisell / Julian Lage / Gyan Riley)
• A Capella Vocal Music (Kirsten Sollek / Eliza Bagg / Elizabeth Bates / Sarah Brailey / Rachel Calloway)

• 700 Bliss
• Charlotte Adigéry & Bolis Pupul
• Terry Allen & The Panhandle Mystery Band
• Zoh Amba
• Reid Anderson
• Ichiko Aoba
• Caterina Barbieri
• Rafiq Bhatia
• Bonny Light Horseman
• Vinicius Cantuaria
• Caroline
• Sierra Ferrell
• Josephine Foster
• Fuji||||||||||Ta
• Gatos Do Sul
• Maeve Gilchrist
• Steve Gunn
• Lonnie Holley
• Sierra Hull
• Sona Jobarteh
• Kali Malone
• Ava Mendoza
• David Moore
• Kevin Morby
• Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet
• Allison Russell
• Rich Ruth
• Son Lux
• Carl Stone
• Tarbaby Ft. David Murray
• Tarta Relena
• James “Blood” Ulmer
• Adia Victoria
• The Weather Station
• Xylouris White

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Big Ears Knoxville 2022 contributed $36 million to Knoxville's economy

Earlier in July, Big Ears released an AngelouEconomics analysis of the economic impact of its four-day 2022 festival. This showed a financial boost of over $36 million to Knoxville and the regional economy.

The 15-page report examines the economic benefits via three independent impact models – festival operations, visitor spending, and performer, media, and free event spending impact. It has also projected an additional $12,875,290 in labor income from the 377 full-time job equivalents supported by the festival.

Per the release, the Big Ears Festival attracted over 5,000 ticketed attendees each day and nearly 22,000 over the course of the four-day weekend. Over 72 per cent of attendees came from out of town, renting accommodations in the Knoxville area with an average length of stay of over four nights. Visitors came from 47 states and 16 countries.