A behind-the-scenes brief on Season 15 — the Texas-native co-founders who built it, the programming that defines it, the people who run it, and what to watch for over four nights in Austin.
Most "TV festivals" are press junkets in formal wear. ATX is the opposite: a long weekend of reunion panels, intimate Q&As, screenings of episodes that defined television, and conversations with the people who write, run, cast, and shoot the shows you actually care about. The founders call it "TV camp for grown-ups," and the room behaves like one — fans and writers and showrunners on the same theatre floor, having the same conversation.
Season 15 lands in Austin on May 28–31, 2026, and on paper it is the strongest lineup the festival has ever assembled: a Friday Night Lights 20th-anniversary reunion taking the "Texas Made" Award home, Everybody Loves Raymond at 30 with Ray Romano and Phil Rosenthal, a House of the Dragon Season 3 first look with showrunner Ryan Condal, the inaugural Indie TV Pilot Competition launched with Mark Duplass, and a Collaborator Award handed to casting directors Sharon Bialy and Sherry Thomas for a body of work that includes Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Barry, and Better Call Saul.
The "Be Cool" policy — no autograph-hunting, no celebrity-stalking, just be a human about it — is the secret to why A-list talent keeps coming back. ATX is the rare festival where the talent looks relaxed in the room.
The festival has two co-founders. They met as assistants at Fox Studios in Los Angeles in 2005, agreed Texas needed a TV-focused festival around 2010 because none existed, and built the first edition in Austin from June 1–3, 2012. Roughly 700 people attended. Fifteen seasons later, the founders still run it.
Began in the industry with production internships on Identity (2003) and Walk the Line (2005), then assistant roles on John Tucker Must Die (2006), The Loop (2006–2007), and Julie & Julia (2009).
Mentored by Betty Thomas, Nora Ephron, and Mira Nair — the directors she worked under in her assistant years.
Met McFarland at Fox Studios in 2005. Worked as a Hollywood assistant until co-founding ATX. Public-facing curator and programmer of the festival's panel slate alongside McFarland.
Speaker at SXSW 2025; long-running ATX programming voice across press, podcast, and panel circuits.
We did always want to come back to Texas, and I basically had a moment where I was leaving New York, and I could go back to L.A. and start over again, or I could come to Texas and see what was up.
▍ Caitlin McFarland on choosing Austin over Los Angeles, c. 2010 — per Curated Texan / Grokipedia coverage
ATX programs reunions, premieres, and intimate craft conversations rather than red-carpet press lines. The 2026 slate leans hard on milestone anniversaries, marquee returns, and one significant new initiative.
ATX hands out a small, deliberately curated awards slate — honors that recognize the people the broader awards-industrial complex tends to under-celebrate.
Casting directors. Collective body of work includes Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, Barry, and Better Call Saul. The first time ATX has given this honor.
Twenty years after the pilot. The franchise that defined modern Texas television gets its own homecoming.
Showrunner honor recognizing Lawrence's sustained body of work across Scrubs, Cougar Town, Ted Lasso, and Shrinking.
ATX runs primarily out of Austin's two anchor downtown movie palaces, both operated by Austin Theatre Alliance, plus surrounding venues for satellite programming, screenings, and after-hours events.
713 Congress Avenue · Downtown Austin. Historic 1915 movie palace, operated by Austin Theatre Alliance. The festival's flagship reunion and panel venue.
719 Congress Avenue · Downtown Austin. The Paramount's sister venue, also Austin Theatre Alliance. Hosts screenings and craft panels.
Surrounding boutique hotels and venues across Downtown and East Austin host satellite events, after-hours mixers, and writers' room conversations.
ATX runs a tiered badge system plus single-event tickets for select panels. Badge tiers move quickly — the entry tier in particular tends to sell out before the lineup is fully announced.
If you're a journalist, a publicist, a panelist, or a fan with a credentialing or attendance question, this is the operational map of the festival's front-door contacts.
External press lead for ATX TV Festival — runs the credentialing line and the embargoed press kit distribution.
▍ atxtv@ssmandl.comProgramming and general inquiries. Best for non-press contacts, partnership conversations, and badge questions.
▍ tv@atxfestival.comFestival runs in significant part on volunteer crew — production, ushering, transportation, hospitality. Annual call goes out months in advance.
▍ volunteer@atxfestival.comThe festival runs a year-round members program with virtual events, presales, and merch — the year-round audience between Austin weekends.
▍ members@atxfestival.comATX operates two parallel domains: atxtv.com (shorter, secondary) and atxfestival.com (primary marketing site). Both share the same backend programming feed but differ in audience emphasis.
The full-fat festival site. Programming calendar, full lineup, panel detail pages, badge purchase flow, press kit, archived program guides going back fifteen seasons.
atxtvfestival.eventive.orgCleaner, shorter URL kept for marketing, social, and word-of-mouth. Redirects through to the same lineup, sponsor, and archive content, with the festival's iconography front-and-center.
Verdict: functional and well-organized. The site does the job: lineup discoverability, badge purchase, archive depth, press intake. The mobile programming grid is the standout — festival sites traditionally fail at exactly that moment, when an attendee on the sidewalk needs to know what's starting in fifteen minutes, and ATX's grid holds together. The two-domain strategy is unusual but harmless.
The single most-quoted thing the founders say about the festival: it operates under a "Be Cool" policy. No selfie-hunting, no autograph rushes, no badge-flashing to push past a writer in a hallway. The premise is straightforward — treat the cast members and showrunners and casting directors as colleagues at a conference, not as quarry on a red carpet. The result is twenty-something writers from cancelled fan-favorite shows agreeing to speak openly about why the cancellation happened, casting directors walking through how a star was actually found, and showrunners answering the question they normally dodge.
It's the policy that lets ATX punch decisively above its weight class. Bigger festivals can't get the same conversations because their rooms aren't designed for them.