South By Southwest (SXSW)

What: The biggest mul­ti-media and genre cel­e­bra­tion on the plan­et — South by South­west (or SXSW) com­bines events of music, film, com­e­dy, gam­ing, and inter­ac­tiv­i­ty, with exhi­bi­tions, show­cas­es, screen­ing, net­work­ing, tech­no­log­i­cal devel­op­ment and more, as under the ban­ner of one roof over the course of 10 days in March, the entire city of Austin, Texas places host to both offi­cial and unof­fi­cial events SXSW events that com­bine mul­ti­ple fes­ti­vals into one. 

Billed as both a plat­form for free thinkers and artists, and an event where inno­va­tion reigns, SXSW has grown from small begin­nings to now see­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple flock to both big and small events over the city — with the mul­ti­ple offi­cial and unof­fi­cial events over the course of the fes­ti­val, com­bined with the numer­ous par­ties that spring up over the city as the fes­ti­val coin­cides with both spring break and St. Patricks Day, ensur­ing that every­one has a choice of attend­ing a world pre­mier event to their lik­ing over the course of SXSW.

When: South by South­west takes place over the course of 10 days over the course of the mid­dle of March, with the fes­ti­val also includ­ing the events of spring Break and St. Patricks day – which help fur­ther add to the par­ty atmos­phere.

Where: South by South­west takes place all over the city of Austin, Texas – with events and unof­fi­cial events break­ing out all over the down­town area of the city and a series of free music and per­for­mances tak­ing place at the out­door stage in the Lady bird Lake park, net­work­ing events tak­ing place the events cen­tre and both free and the tick­et­ed and pre­mi­um events which require badges tak­ing place in the Austin Con­ven­tion Cen­tre.

Dura­tion: The entire South by South­west  fes­ti­val runs over the course of 10 days, with offi­cial events begin­ning at 9am and last­ing until the ear­ly hours – with per­for­mances, shows and net­work­ing events of the fes­ti­val last­ing from a few min­utes to mul­ti­ple days.

Tick­ets: For the pre­mi­um and sought after events, South by South­west oper­ates a pret­ty expen­sive badge pol­i­cy – which guar­an­tees you access to and allows you to skip the line to all events either over the course of the entire fes­ti­val or for all the events in the cat­e­go­ry tak­ing place over the course of the fes­ti­val.

For a badge to guar­an­tee pri­ma­ry access to all events over the course of SXSW prices start at $1600 – with pass­es for com­ing in at $540 (edu­ca­tion­al events) and $1270 for music, film and inter­ac­tive / net­work­ing events.

To get your hands on one of these pass­es vis­it the offi­cial SXSW web­site at [www.SXSW.com] where you must reg­is­ter in advance to be eli­gi­ble to pur­chase.

Addi­tion­al­ly indi­vid­ual tick­et­ed events are offered if demand for the pass­es are not met (again on the site) – or if demand is even fur­ther low­er, tick­ets are avail­able on the day start­ing at $15, with the best advice to attend an indu­vial tick­et­ed event being to check the sched­ule in advance for your event and arrive very ear­ly to secure tick­ets – mak­ing sure to bring an umbrel­la with you for the pos­si­ble rain.

For those who do not wish to spend the cost for a pass, or risk long hours of queues – the var­i­ous free and unof­fi­cial events – which large­ly focus on par­ties and music con­certs – take place all over the city of Austin – with the only draw­back being they can be dif­fi­cult to find if not in a notable area (parks, con­cert halls etc) – luck­i­ly the good peo­ple at the unof­fi­cial guide to SXSW have a handy list on the unof­fi­cial loca­tions of some of the best SXSW unof­fi­cial par­ties – which can be found here {Here}

Need to Know: Aside from the need to plan in advance if attend­ing tick­et­ed events – and to keep your eye on the best place for unof­fi­cial events, the growth of South by South­west from a few hun­dred atten­dees to hun­dreds of thou­sands has let to increas­ing prob­lems with crowd con­trols (espe­cial­ly for the queu­ing for pop­u­lar events) and traf­fic flow. So much so that a num­ber of main roads in Austin will now either shut or be open to pub­lic trans­port only with a free SXSW shut­tle bus oper­at­ing through­out the city, being the best option to get around the fes­ti­val sites.

It is also strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed to bring an umbrel­la and coat, because despite the nor­mal­ly warm weath­er in Texas rain­storms do hap­pen dur­ing March – and you don’t want to be caught in a long que unpre­pared.

More Infor­ma­tion:  For fur­ther infor­ma­tion about the fes­ti­val line up and to reg­is­ter for pass­es vis­it the offi­cial SXSW web­site at [www.SXSW.com] and for infor­ma­tion on the unof­fi­cial par­ties and their loca­tions the best resource is the unof­fi­cial SXSW guide which is {Here}