South by Southwest
 Downtown Austin, Texas, hosts SXSW each spring | |
| Location | Austin, Texas, USA |
|---|---|
| Language | International |
| Website | http://www.sxsw.com |
South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of film, interactive and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring (usually in March) in Austin, Texas, United States. SXSW first began in 1987 and is centered on the downtown Austin Convention Center. Each of the three parts runs relatively independently, with different start and end dates.
Overview
SXSW Music is one of the largest music festivals in the United States, with more than 2,000 performers playing in more than 90 venues around downtown Austin over four days, in March. Though it is an industry-based event, SXSW Music links locally with events such as the annual Austin Music Awards show and Texas Rock Fest. SXSW Music also offers free musical samples of featured artists at each festival. The number of songs has grown from 775 MP3 tracks in 2005 to 1,267 in 2009.[1][2]
SXSW Film has become one of the world's premier film festivals,[citation needed] focusing on new directing talent.
Similarly, SXSW Interactive has attracted a strong following among web creators and entrepreneurs. Its focus on emerging technology has earned the festival a reputation as a breeding ground for new ideas and creative technologies. According to festival co-organizer Louis Black, SXSW Interactive "has probably been the biggest of its kind in the world" since 2007.[3]
The music event has grown from 700 registrants in 1987 to nearly 12,000 registrants. SXSW Film and SXSW Interactive events attract approximately 11,000 registrants to Austin every March.[4]
Collectively, SXSW is the highest revenue-producing special event for the Austin economy, with an estimated economic impact of at least $110 million in 2008. [5][6][7]
History
SXSW began as a music festival in 1987. It was organized principally by four people: Louis Black, editor and co-founder of local alternative weekly The Austin Chronicle, Chronicle publisher Nick Barbaro, Chronicle staffer Roland Swenson and booking agent Louis Meyers. Black came up with the name, as a play on the name of the Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest. The organizers considered it a regional event and expected around 150 attendees to show up, but over 700 came, and according to Black "it was national almost immediately."[3]
Meyers left Austin and the festival in the early 1990s, but Black, Barbaro and Swenson remain the festival's key organizers as of 2010.[3]
In 1994, SXSW added a component for film and other media, named the "SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference".[3]
In 1995, the SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference was split into two separate events, "SXSW Film" and "SXSW Multimedia".[3]
In 1999, SXSW Multimedia was renamed "SXSW Interactive".[3]
2002
A performance by the band The Polyphonic Spree at the 2002 SXSW Music festival helped bring them to national attention before they had signed with a major label.[8]
2005
The 2005 SXSW Film is considered by some to be the origin of the mumblecore film genre. A number of films now classified as mumblecore, including The Puffy Chair and Mutual Appreciation, screened there, and Eric Masunaga, a musician and the sound editor on Mutual Appreciation, is credited with coining the term "mumblecore" at a bar while at the festival.[9]
2006
A secret concert at the 2006 SXSW Music by the band The Flaming Lips was called one of the "Top 10 Music-Festival Moments" of all time by Time magazine in 2010.[10]
The 2006 SXSW Interactive featured a keynote panel of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.[11]
That year, "Screenburn at SXSW", a component for video games, was added to SXSW Interactive.[3]
2007
The 2007 music festival took place from March 14 to 18, and more than 1,400 acts performed.
Two of the top film premieres that year were Elvis and Anabelle and Skills Like This.
The website Twitter notably gained a good deal of early traction and buzz at the 2007 SXSW Interactive,[12] though it did not launch there, as is sometimes reported.[3]
2008
The 2008 SXSW Interactive got media attention after a keynote interview of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg by technology journalist Sarah Lacy, that was considered by some observers to be a "train wreck" due to an audience perception that Lacy was asking uninteresting questions, as well as mocking or terse answers in response from Zuckerberg.[13]
2009
The 2009 festival was held March 13–22. In 2009, the Interactive section of SXSW in particular drew larger attendance levels. This influx of tech-savvy attendees seriously strained the networks of providers such as AT&T (primarily due to heavy iPhone usage).[14] Also new was the founding of an international organization for those not attending, dubbed NotAtSXSW. Coordinating through Twitter and other online tools, notatsxsw events were held in London, New York, Wisconsin, Portland, Oregon and Miami.[15] According to the Los Angeles Times, some Twitter users were only pretending to be at the 2009 festival.[16] During the conference a group of British web developers occupied a conference room and held their own panel "Not Another Social Media Panel" in reaction to the perceived homogeneity and lack of dissent of some of the other panels.[17]
The 2009 SXSW Interactive saw the launch of the Foursquare application, which was called "the breakout mobile app" of the event by the Mashable blog.[18]
The 2009 SXSW Film screened 250 films, including 54 world premieres. The event was notable for having the United States premiere of the film The Hurt Locker, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2010.[3] The winners of the feature jury awards were: Documentary feature: "45365", and Narrative Feature: Made in China; [19]
2010
The 2010 music festival was dedicated to Alex Chilton, who died shortly before he was to perform with Big Star.[citation needed] A tribute concert was performed in his honor on March 20, 2010.[20]
At the 2010 festival, which took place March 12–21, nearly 2,000 bands were officially scheduled to perform,[21] and festival reps estimated that over 13,000 industry representatives attended.[22] Though traditionally the Austin Music Awards kick off the festival, that year organizers slated it as the closing act. Local musician Bob Schneider earned 6 awards, including Song of the Year, Singer of the Year, and Band of the Year (with Lonelyland.)[21] The 2010 festival was also notable for appearances by the surviving members of the band Moby Grape.[23]
Similar festivals
SXSW has inspired similar festivals elsewhere, including 35 Conferette (formerly known as "North by 35" or "NX35") in Denton, TX, North by Northeast (NXNE) in Toronto, North by Northwest (NXNW) in Portland, OR and West by Southwest (WXSW) in Tucson, AZ.
References
- ^ Hewgill, Greg. "SXSW showcasing music torrents". Hewgill.com. Retrieved 2008-07-30.
- ^ "Torrent Info (Home of the (unofficial) SXSW 2009 Torrent)". Google Sites. Retrieved 2009-10-17.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i SXSW stays course, continues growth, Alex Geiser, The Daily Texan, March 18, 2010
- ^ "About SXSW". Retrieved 2009-03-08.
- ^ "SXSW could have $110M impact on Austin economy". Austin Business Journal. 2008-02-27. Retrieved 2008-11-17.
- ^ Rees, John (2008-03). "Austin's SXSW is studied for its impact to the regional economy. AngelouEconomics' projections are double that provided by the visitor's bureau". AngelouEconomics. Retrieved 2008-11-17.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Whittaker, Richard (2008-06-27). "Now That's a ROT of Money". The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 2008-11-17.
- ^ Polyphonic Spree: From Voices In A Singer's Head To Voices On The Stage, Corey Moss, VH1 News, April 25, 2003
- ^ Lim, Dennis (August 19, 2007). "Mumblecore - The New Talkies: Generation DIY". The New York Times.
- ^ Top 10 Music-Festival Moments: Flaming Lips at SXSW — 2006, Dan Fletcher, Time, March 18, 2010
- ^ SXSW 2006 Panel: Craig Newmark & Jimmy Wales Keynote, Auscillate blog, March 13, 2006
- ^ What is the process involved in launching a startup at SXSW?, Quora
- ^ Journalist becomes the story at Mark Zuckerberg SXSWi keynote, Daniel Terdiman, CNET "Geek Gestalt" blog, March 9, 2008
- ^ "SXSW: IPhone Influx Pushes AT&T to the Limit". Epicenter (blog.wired.com). Conde Nast. March 14, 2009.
- ^ Jamieson, Ruth (Wednesday 18 March 2009). "Can't make it to SXSW this year? Go to #notatsxsw instead". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Tony Pierce (2009-03-17). "Los Angeles Times". Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ "SXSW — where everybody knows your Twitter name". Tech Crunch.
- ^ Foursquare is the Breakout Mobile App at SXSW, Jennifer Van Grove, Mashable, March 16, 2009
- ^ By (2009-03-18). ""Made in China" and "45365" Take Top SXSW Jury Prizes". Indiewire. Retrieved 2011-02-22.
- ^ "SXSW Tribute Concert for Alex Chilton". 20 March 2010. Retrieved 2010-03-24.
- ^ a b "SXSW 2010 Draws to a Close". nbcnewyork.com. 2010-03-22. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
- ^ "Scenes From the Geekfest at SXSW". DailyFinance.com. 2010-03-14. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
- ^ Raul Hernandez, Live Shots: SXSW Music 2010, Austin Chronicle, March 26, 2010.
External links
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