Big Ears Festival Tickets

Once again, an amazing and talented cross section of artists and genres. Thanks so much

Simply amazing festival. Sounds from across the spectrum from ones you know to ones you'll be glad you now know. Lovely venues, great part of the city and the best people. Best part, hearing things you did not know existed.....

Fantastic festival! Wonderful, eclectic mix of styles and genres. This is one festival I am anxious to go to again. All the shows I saw were excellent. Good venues, good sound, polite and friendly staffers...nothing but good things to say. The only fault in it is so many people start leaving concerts early because they don't want to miss the next awesome act!

If you love music, stay away from every other fest except for this one!

I saw 23 concerts in 72 hours, pretty much 23 different types of music, ranging from great to once in a lifetime spectacular, I'll go to this festival every year. Knoxville was a great place, nice people, good prices, easy to walk everywhere, lots of bars & restaurants.

Favorites: Unremembered, Nils Olstead, Magnetic Fields, Drone Mass, and Deathprod

I have attended 4 years of Big Ears. I'm usually not a big fan of most of the artists before I attend, but there is such a great variety of interesting music that I leave the festival with a new appreciation. It broadens horizons. My only gripes are with avoidable technical issues. Venues have unnecessarily loud doors and in the Square Room the kitchen staff can be heard loudly. Considering many of Big Ears' performances are quiet and subtle, some of these issues are too distracting to enjoy the music. Mill & Mine is a beautiful space, but any show with rock instruments turns into a muddy mess. Blonde Redhead had a string section that was inaudible, as well as the vocals. It just gets way too boomy. But as a whole, the festival is amazing and Knoxville should be proud to host it.

Every performance was incredible and the venues had great sound.

A perfect adventure into music. The options are endless in both venues and genres. My first Big Ears festival but definitely not my last. Highly recommend!

I've never been to an event quite like this. Whle the talent was great, what set it apart was the connection between performers and fans, who often as not were the same people. Any conversation was likely to include an unusually deep knowledge of, and appreciation for, the performers on the stage, and then trading business cards when you discovered both your bands had recorded with one of the people mounting the stage at that moment. Really a positive, passionate vibe about the event.

Knoxville is a very friendly, walkable city and all the venues are right in the downtown area. I was there for one day but plan to stay for at least two days next year. For me, the ECM artists were a big draw. I really enjoyed seeing the Nils Økland Band on Friday afternoon. Other highlights include Gyan Riley, Arve Henrickson and Ståle Storløkken, Jóhann Jóhannsson & the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, Theatre of Voices, and Carla Bley, Steve Swallow and Andy Sheppard. Can’t wait to see the line-up for next year.

Best and most unique music festival ever. Well run and something for everyone.

My first Big Ears, but not the last! I went to hear Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson and Kiasmos - and they didn't disappoint. But I also discovered John Luther Adams, Nico Muhly and the Necks. With friendly attendees, well-managed crowds and convenient venues, Knoxville hit one out of the ballpark. Food choices are limited, but that's changing. If you haven't already, GO GO GO.

I very much enjoyed my time in Knoxville at big Ears ! The music and experience was wonderful. I enjoyed walking around and experiencing the city also.

Big Ears is a music festival located yearly in Knoxville Tn . The music ranges from classical to metal and mostly has elements of the experimental and is generally non mainstream . Both years have been fascinating experiences , the festival not only includes music but a lot of cutting edge film work as well. The cities downtown is fun , the resturants good ,walkability is great and it is well organized and mostly on time. Overall it a wonderful festival , that will give you plenty invigorate your musical and visual realms . Just go .

I purchased the 3-day pass and then, after much effort, bought tickets to two of the additional events at the Tennessee Theater. The performances deserve all of the praise that is being given them in both the national and local press. HOWEVER, the ticketing was a mess. After I purchased by 3-day pass online I could not, as instructed, use the web site to purchase additional tickets for the add-on events. Finally called AC Entertainment directly and they directed me to the Tennessee Theater box office. People there were very helpful but as it turned out but still wound up without a ticket to one of the events I wanted to attend. When the tickets arrived (via email) it was hard to spot them among all of the notices that kept pouring in from Big Ears. And, when I finally did get my tickets to the add on events, they had no time printed on them. This considerably complicated matters as the schedules that appeared in the News-Sentinel and Mercury and online were sometimes different. I has to call the Tennessee Theater box office again on the day of the performances and ask what I was seeing and when. Not only did I spend a lot of time trying to get my tickets but I also spent what seemed to me unnecessary time standing in line to get my bracelet. (Fortunately it was warm and Market Sq. Mall was lively). The long line snaked around and finally into a cramped space where people at 4 computers were handing out bracelets and sorting out all manner of ticketing problems. There should have been designated lines for those of us who had already printed out our tickets and other lines for those who had more complicated requests. Big Ears was great but the organization of ticketing and of letting people know what tickets they need, how to buy them, how to print them, and when to use them needs a lot more work. My enjoyment of the performances is still tinged with irritation at the lack of efficiency in organization.

BIG EARS is such a wonderful opportunity to listen outside the box - experiencing sights and sounds on the cutting edge. It's almost a sensory overload. I would suggest that extra time be scheduled between acts so that we don't have to walk out on one performer in order to attend another. That does not respect either the performers or the audience.

big ears 2016 had so many great concerts i could not catch all of them! the ones i caught were fantastic - knoxville symphony doing john luther adams' piece, maya beiser's solo concert, laurie anderson doing everything - her film, q & a, stepping in for tony conrad with faust, lou reed's drones with l.a. improvising on top, and her concert with philip glass,eighth blackbird doing bryce dessner's murder ballads,sam amidon's voice,nico muhly's compositions, the gloaming,anthony braxton,vijay iyer & wadada leo smith, and the funky,engaging kasami washington - what a great year!

Sunn O))) Just OMG! Over and over.. Thank you Big Ears for crushing mine. It was so worth it....

A perfect fit of quirky music and scruffy city. We bought a Saturday day pass and a separate ticket to the Laurie Anderson & Phillip Glass event. We started at 11 in the morning and ended at 11 at night and enjoyed all the artists, some weirder than others but that's the point! The venues were improved from previous years, with a couple of larger rooms, including an old church and a newly rehabbed, re-purposed event space in the Old City. The standards are the Tennessee Theater and the Bijou Theater -- just seeing one performance in each is worth the price of admission. They are both exquisite historic venues with perfect sound. The only negative thing I can say is that the festival may be getting too successful. Many of the shows filled quickly and went to one-in-one-out status, which I don't remember much of in previous years. We missed a couple of acts that we really wanted to see because of that. On the whole, though, highly recommend to anyone with an open mind.