By Movieguide® Staff
Disney+ and Hulu announced Monday that Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits will livestream globally on both platforms this year — a first for the three Live Nation marquees and the latest sign that Disney wants its subscribers parked on the couch even when nothing scripted is airing.
“Music festivals are among the most electric, can’t-miss moments in culture, and now Disney+ and Hulu subscribers around the world can experience the excitement,” said Lauren Tempest, Head of Content Planning & Partnerships, DTC at The Walt Disney Company, in the press release. Tempest added that the company plans to keep extending its live slate to deliver “the biggest, most iconic moments right as they happen.”
Hulu has streamed these festivals for US audiences five years running. The Disney+ addition pushes the broadcasts into international living rooms for the first time, while domestic subscribers will be able to watch on either app.
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Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival kicks things off June 11-14 in Manchester, Tennessee. Lollapalooza follows July 30 through August 2 in Chicago’s Grant Park, and Austin City Limits Music Festival caps the run October 2-4 in Texas. Headliners across the three include Skrillex, the Strokes, Noah Kahan, Charli XCX, Lorde and Tate McRae, with full lineups still rolling out.
“Music festivals used to be experiences reserved for the people who could physically be there,” said Kevin Chernett, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Media Partnerships at Live Nation, in the announcement. “Now they’re becoming global live moments that fans want to experience together in real time, no matter where they are in the world.”
Disney leaned on research to back the expansion. Live Nation’s 2025 Living for Live Global Study found that 73% of fans say they listen to more international artists than they used to, and 85% agree that live music transcends borders and languages — a survey of 42,000 people across 15 countries.
The two streamers will also bring back the Live Set, an on-site studio that produces artist interviews and behind-the-scenes coverage during each festival weekend. The studio is getting a redesign for 2026.
For Christian families, the news lands in the middle of an ongoing conversation about what Disney+ has actually become. Movieguide® has tracked the platform’s quiet shift since Hulu’s content folded into the app, which brought hundreds of R-rated movies and TV-MA series under the same Disney umbrella that families once trusted for animated classics.
A live festival feed adds another wrinkle. What flies on a Lollapalooza stage isn’t always what a parent wants their kid catching mid-channel-flip — and the Live Set interviews and behind-the-scenes coverage won’t be filtered for children either.
That doesn’t mean writing the festivals off entirely. Music has a way of surfacing the good even at secular events, and Movieguide® has covered some of those moments — worship artist Brandon Lake praying onstage at Stagecoach before performing with Jelly Roll, and Christian singer Lauren Daigle taking the Coachella stage. Grace shows up at music festivals more often than the lineup posters suggest.
The bigger picture: Disney’s live push now includes ESPN inside the Disney+ app, ABC News, and the live “Playlist” channels Movieguide® reported on last year. Festivals fit the same playbook — give subscribers a reason to open the app every day, not just for the next Marvel release.
Additional broadcast details will roll out closer to each festival weekend. Until then, subscribers can mark their calendars, and parents can double-check their household profiles.
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