Big Ears Festival

Big Ears Festival takes place across a multi-venue downtown campus in Knoxville, Tennessee, transforming historic theaters, churches, clubs, and galleries into performance spaces for four days each spring. Venues include the Tennessee Theatre, Bijou Theatre, and a variety of other downtown sites that together form an in-person festival environment. The 2027 edition is scheduled for April 1–4.

Founded in 2009 by Ashley Capps, Big Ears Festival operates as a 501(c)(3) organization focused on experimental, contemporary classical, jazz, indie, and multi-genre discovery programming. The festival's genre focus emphasizes adventurous and boundary-crossing music across its four-day schedule. Official figures from the 2026 overview reported over 35,000 attendees across the multi-venue program.

The festival format is in-person, with performances distributed throughout the downtown Knoxville campus rather than concentrated at a single gate or venue. This multi-venue structure allows concurrent programming across different spaces, from formal theaters to intimate club settings. Individual venue policies may apply to age restrictions, as the festival does not publish a single festival-wide age rule.

Big Ears Festival runs annually in the spring season, typically in March or April. The 2027 edition marks another installment in the festival's history of presenting experimental and contemporary music in downtown Knoxville. The four-day duration and multi-venue format remain consistent with the festival's established structure.