AGS Austin 2026 Goes Full Festival at Zilker Lodge
App Growth Summit is going back to Zilker Lodge, and this time, it’s a festival!
Same campground, same Texas BBQ smoke drifting over the crowd, same campfire waiting at the end of the night, except now it’s the stage for an incredible open-air festival, the first of its kind for App Growth Summit.
App Growth Summit Austin 2025 earned its reputation as the most original and vibey stop on the calendar, and it sold out doing it.
App Growth Summit Austin 2026 is leaning all the way into that reputation with a festival format and a stellar lineup to match it.
Here’s what a day at Zilker Lodge actually feels like this year, and why it’s worth grabbing a seat before the lineup fills in!
Zilker Lodge Is Getting the Festival Treatment
It’s an open-air campground setting, not a hotel ballroom: Texas BBQ smoke drifting through the crowd between sessions, a campfire waiting at the end of the night, golden-hour light through most of the afternoon lineup.
App Growth Summit Austin 2026 takes that same site and turns it into an actual festival, built on the ground that already worked, not somewhere new chasing a bigger idea.
App Growth Summit is calling it something close to an industry cult classic now, the kind of description an event earns only after people already know what they’re walking into and come back anyway. This year’s official pitch leans hard into the setting: a cool venue, real vibes, and a crowd that’s apparently even cooler than last time!
Who’s Showing Up This Year
The 2026 lineup is already reaching into rooms App Growth Summit hasn’t fully explored before.
KFC and FanDuel have joined the 2026 lineup, alongside UT Athletics, MyFitnessPal, DeNA, TRUE Finance, Rumble, and OMI AI. Quick-service food, sports betting, college athletics, fitness tracking, fintech, streaming, and a company built natively around AI, all sending someone to the same lodge this October!
One familiar face is in that mix too. Alex Kozachenko, CEO of HyperBeard Games, traded founder war stories at last year’s closing fireside chat, and he’s returning for 2026 as well. A cult classic earns that description partly because people come back, and he’s one of the ones who did.
Confirmed speakers are already over 25, up from over 20 last year. 12 sessions are already on the schedule, and App Growth Summit is expecting 200 or more people at Zilker Lodge this time. The venue isn’t changing. Everything happening inside it is getting bigger.
The Vibe Is the Whole Pitch This Year
None of this works without the setting doing the heavy lifting, and Zilker Lodge has already proven it can.
A campground built for talking growth all day and unwinding around a fire all night sounds like an odd formula for a marketing conference, until you’re standing in the smoke with a plate of BBQ, talking shop with someone building the exact same kind of app as you.
The after party keeps Zilker Lodge going well past sundown. Terry Black’s BBQ serves through the night with vegetarian options on the menu, and live music takes the stage once it gets dark. The producer and pianist behind the Black Pumas, a Grammy-nominated act, headlines alongside a handful of other performers. Grab a plate, pull up a seat by the fire, and stay for the whole night!
That’s what sold Austin 2025 out, and it’s the same formula Austin 2026 is running with more people, more sessions, and a festival banner over the whole thing!
Request your invite to App Growth Summit Austin now while the lineup is still filling in, and check the App Growth Summit Austin event page for what’s confirmed so far, with more dropping closer to October 28th.
Austin isn’t the only stop left on the 2026 calendar. Browse the full App Growth Summit event calendar to see which other invite-only rooms are coming up next.
