South by Southwest

Introduction

South by Southwest, shortened to SXSW, is one of the most intense festivals in the country. It is also a major conferences meaning giant interactive media, music and film execs show up for it. Kind of imagine a giant music and film festival where all the power brokers show up and the big deals are made behind stage.

The festival started in 1987 and has only grown from the first year with 700 registered musicians to almost 12,000 today. Each part of the festival is actually independent with different start and end dates. The music festival has over 1,400 performers playing in countless venues around Austin for four days in March. This means you can see almost any kind of music form the upper indy to hardcore hip-hop to super pop stars perform at this event.

Starting in 1994 the film and interactive media conferences started. The film festival associated with these conference quickly became one of the most prestigious in the world. The festival mainly focuses on directing ability. The interactive media conference is one of largest in the industry and focus on emerging technology. Twitter was started at the interactive conference in 2007.

Official website: http://sxsw.com/

Opening Hours

SXSWeek 2010

Film and Interactive Media: March 12th to 21st
Music Festival: March 17th to 21st

Cost

Depends on the shows and activities you want to go to. For more popular acts the tickets will be pretty pricey.

Getting There

The event is all over Austin so make sure to look up information on each venue

Drink

Most of the venues serve Alcohol but it will be bar prices

Sleep

Hotels in town get booked up for this event so plan in advance. Maybe finding a place to stay a few months in advance might be a good idea.