The South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW)
kicked off on Friday, March 8th and will be running full swing until
Sunday, March 17th. The
festival first began in Austin, Texas, in 1987, and by its second year it
had already gained international interest. Today SXSW has offices abroad in
Ireland, Germany, Australia and Japan.
SXSW has three different event types: music, film, and interactive.
The music event registrants alone number around 16,000 each year. The film and
interactive events were added in the festival’s eighth year and together the
three events bring in about 32,000 registrants annually.
The goal of SXSW was originally and is still to bring
creative individuals together to collaborate, meet, share ideas, and develop
their careers. And with thousands of music acts, films, and interactive events,
it seems to be getting the job done.
Music artists large and small come in for the festival—over
2,000 of them. This year’s show is headlining bands like Flogging Molly, The
Crystal Method, Ben Folds Five, Beastie Boys, Bright Eyes, Eminem, Kings of
Leon, and MGMT. But independent artists from labels like Mexican Summer (parented
by Andres
Santo Domingo’s Kemado Records) will also be in attendance. Autre Ne Veut,
Mood Rings, Part Time, and the newly revived Vietnam will all be playing at
SXSW this year.
But while shows may be the most immediately appealing aspect
of a music and film festival, there is so much more to SXSW. There are also
educational music sessions, expos, Startup Village events, comedy shows,
parties, film screenings, awards, gaming sessions, trade shows and more. For
anyone involved in the music industry, this is clearly the place to mix and
mingle.
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