The final weekend of August belongs to Willie Nelson. On August 28, 29, and 30, 2026, the Outlaw Music Festival Tour rolls through New York State on three consecutive nights — Northwell at Jones Beach Theater on Long Island, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in the Catskills, and the Broadview Stage at SPAC in Saratoga Springs. Three of the most storied outdoor venues in the country, three nights of country and Americana royalty, and one 93-year-old bandleader whose name has been synonymous with the word “outlaw” for half a century. It is the closing run of a 12-city tour that began July 3 in Phoenix, and there is something fitting about Willie Nelson choosing to end his summer at the venues that built outdoor American music.
The 2026 NY swing lineup centers on Willie Nelson & Family with three of the most distinctive voices in modern Americana: The Avett Brothers, Sheryl Crow, and Stephen Wilson Jr. Filling out the bill are Robert Randolph and Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble — a programming choice that signals what the Outlaw Music Festival has always been, even as the genre tags have shifted around it. This is not country music as a marketing category. This is American roots music as a living, evolving tradition, played by people who have spent their lives inside of it.
Willie Nelson founded the Outlaw Music Festival in 2016 as a touring extension of the spirit that has defined his career since the early 1970s, when he and Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash refused to make the records Nashville wanted them to make. The festival has run every summer since, growing from a single date into an annual coast-to-coast institution. Past editions have featured Bob Dylan, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, The Mavericks, Allison Russell, and dozens of others who fit the outlaw template — artists who write their own material, play it their way, and have built careers on the strength of the songs rather than the dictates of format radio. The 2026 tour has included Wilco on the Texas dates and Billy Strings at the Austin Fourth of July Picnic, with Lukas Nelson, Margo Price, Sierra Hull, Rodney Crowell, and Lily Meola among the rotating cast across other markets.
The Music
Willie Nelson & Family is, by any measure, one of the most important touring acts in American music history. At 93, Nelson still plays Trigger — the battered Martin N-20 he has played since 1969 — and still leads the band his sister Bobbie helped anchor for decades before her passing in 2022. His setlists draw from a catalog that runs from “Crazy” through “Red Headed Stranger” and “Stardust” to recent records that have continued to expand the canon. A Willie Nelson set in 2026 is a kind of living American songbook, performed by the man who wrote a substantial portion of it.
The Avett Brothers, who join the NY swing as second-line headliners, have spent two decades building one of the most loyal audiences in roots music. Scott and Seth Avett’s catalog — from the raw early albums through I and Love and You, The Carpenter, Magpie and the Dandelion, and beyond — has earned them a place on festival main stages from Bonnaroo to Newport Folk. Their live show, anchored by a longstanding band that includes cellist Joe Kwon and bassist Bob Crawford, translates from theater stages to amphitheaters without losing the intimacy that defines the recordings.
Sheryl Crow brings a different but complementary lineage to the bill. A nine-time Grammy winner and 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Crow’s catalog spans rock, country, folk, and pop, but the through-line has always been craft songwriting. She is one of the few artists on the contemporary touring circuit who can credibly share a stage with Willie Nelson and the Avett Brothers without any of those bookings feeling like a stretch. Her recent records have leaned harder into the Americana side of her sound, and an outdoor amphitheater is exactly the setting that suits her best.
Stephen Wilson Jr. is the booking that signals where the Outlaw Music Festival is headed. Wilson, who broke through with his 2023 debut søn of dad, has been one of the most talked-about new voices in country music — a former boxer and biochemist whose songs braid grunge-era guitar tones with old-school country storytelling. He is the kind of artist Willie Nelson has spent his entire career championing: someone making music that does not fit comfortably in any single Nashville bucket, but that obviously belongs in the broader American tradition.
Robert Randolph, the pedal steel virtuoso whose Family Band has been a festival favorite for two decades, brings the gospel-funk-blues energy that has made him one of the most physically commanding live performers in American music. Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble round out the bill — Was being one of the most respected producers and bassists of the last forty years, whose Detroit-rooted ensemble draws on jazz, soul, and rock players from his deep Rolodex. Both bookings reflect the festival’s willingness to program outside the country lane while staying inside the larger American tradition.
The Experience
What makes the NY swing notable is not just the lineup. It is the three venues. Outlaw 2026 closes its tour at three of the most distinctive outdoor amphitheaters in the country, on three consecutive nights, in three completely different settings.
Northwell at Jones Beach Theater, on August 28, sits directly on the water in Wantagh, NY — an open-air amphitheater on a sandbar in the Atlantic Ocean, designed to Robert Moses’ specifications and opened in 1952 as the New Jones Beach Marine Stadium. The venue, which has gone through several corporate naming partners over the decades and is currently the Northwell at Jones Beach Theater, holds roughly 15,000 fans and offers one of the only concert experiences in America where you can smell salt air during the headlining set. The sunsets behind the stage are part of the show. For Long Island fans, this is the Outlaw stop.
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, on August 29, is the Catskills date — and the one with the most weight of history. The pavilion and lawn sit on the original site of the 1969 Woodstock festival, on Max Yasgur’s former dairy farm in Bethel, NY. The Museum at Bethel Woods, adjacent to the venue, is one of the most thoughtful music history institutions in the country. To see Willie Nelson play on the ground where Jimi Hendrix played “The Star-Spangled Banner” at dawn in 1969 is a kind of full-circle American moment that you cannot manufacture. Bethel Woods opened as a performing arts center in 2006, and the natural amphitheater bowl gives the venue acoustics and sightlines that rival any outdoor venue in the Northeast.
Broadview Stage at SPAC, on August 30, closes the tour. The Saratoga Performing Arts Center opened in 1966 as the summer home of the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and has hosted virtually every major American touring act in the decades since. The venue is set inside Saratoga Spa State Park, with the pavilion built into a natural slope that opens onto a vast grass lawn shaded by old-growth trees. For Capital Region fans, SPAC has been the summer soundtrack since the Johnson administration. A Willie Nelson closing-night set at SPAC, ending the 2026 Outlaw Music Festival tour, is the kind of show people will be talking about for years.
The crowd at an Outlaw Festival show is multigenerational in a way that very few touring festivals manage. Lifelong Willie Nelson fans in their seventies sit alongside Avett Brothers fans in their thirties and Stephen Wilson Jr. fans in their twenties, and the whole audience tends to know every word of the headliner’s catalog. The vibe is patient, attentive, and warm — closer to an outdoor listening room than a beer-fueled festival shed.
Getting There and Know Before You Go
Northwell at Jones Beach Theater is located at 895 Bay Parkway in Wantagh, NY, on the south shore of Long Island. From New York City, take the Southern State Parkway to the Wantagh State Parkway south to the end. Parking is on-site and extensive. The venue is open to the elements — bring sunscreen, a light layer for the ocean breeze after dark, and a rain plan. The August Atlantic can flip on you. Public transit options are limited; rideshare from Long Island Rail Road stations is workable for fans without a car.
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts is located at 200 Hurd Road in Bethel, NY, about 90 minutes from New York City and roughly 2.5 hours from Albany. From the south, take Route 17 west to Exit 104, then follow signs. The pavilion is covered and offers reserved seating; the lawn is general admission and rewards arriving early to stake out a spot. Bring blankets, low chairs (per venue policy), and bug spray — the Catskills in late August can be buggy after sunset. Allow extra time for parking and the walk to the venue from the lots.
Broadview Stage at SPAC is located at 108 Avenue of the Pines in Saratoga Springs, NY, inside Saratoga Spa State Park. From the Northway (I-87), take Exit 13N and follow signs. Parking is plentiful within the state park, with the closest lots filling first. The lawn is one of the best deals in live music — bring blankets and chairs (height-restricted) and a picnic. Saratoga Springs is a 10-minute drive from the venue with restaurants, hotels, and a downtown worth exploring before or after the show. Late August in Saratoga is one of the best weeks on the regional calendar — the racing meet at Saratoga Race Course is winding down, and the town is at peak summer energy.
Tickets for all three NY dates went on sale March 27, 2026, through Ticketmaster. Pavilion seats, lawn tickets, and various VIP and premium packages are available depending on venue. Pricing varies by date and section; the Bethel Woods and SPAC dates have traditionally been the more accessible price points, with Jones Beach trending slightly higher due to Long Island demand.
Why This Festival Matters
The Outlaw Music Festival is not a destination festival. There is no campground, no multi-day pass, no festival grounds to wander. It is a touring revue that drops into a single amphitheater for one night and then loads out and moves to the next city. That format is older than the modern festival circuit — it is closer to the package tours of the 1950s and 1960s than to Coachella or Bonnaroo — and Willie Nelson, of all people, is exactly the right person to keep it alive.
What the festival proves, year after year, is that there is still an enormous audience for American roots music played by serious artists in beautiful outdoor settings. The Outlaw brand is not nostalgia. It is a working argument that country, Americana, folk, and rock all share a common lineage, and that lineage is best honored by booking artists who take it seriously. The 2026 NY swing — three venues, three nights, one of the great American songwriters anchoring all three — is the clearest statement that argument can make.
That Willie Nelson, at 93, is still on the road making it is the kind of fact that does not require embellishment. He has earned every word of “outlaw,” and he is still using it to make room for the artists coming up behind him.
The Outlaw Music Festival 2026 NY swing runs August 28 at Northwell at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh, August 29 at Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, and August 30 at the Broadview Stage at SPAC in Saratoga Springs. Lineup and tickets at blackbirdpresents.com.
