This year’s SXSW(i) was by far the largest and most overcrowded that I’ve been to, with the heaviest marketing presence and the largest number of panels I had no interest in attending. It was also the most fun I’ve had in Austin, even though it took me a full week to catch up after returning.
Wonderful Things
- Not feeling like I had to go to panels. Instead going out into the beautiful weather and eating delicious food with smart, funny people. (Frank’s, Moonshine, the sausage cart outside Shangri-La, El Sol y Luna, and even the noodle bowl from the convention center stand out as especially fun and/or yummy.)
- As always, meeting a fresh batch of awesome people. Equally as important: getting to relax with people I already know, but rarely get to see.
- Hitting Cog’aoke just before there was an impossible line and thus getting to enjoy the best parts (Kevin and Jeffrey‘s magical opening performance, Glenda, Roger Niner, Tony Bacigalupo, the “I’m On a Boat” guys, and Jason Santa Maria on “Rebel Yell”) and hang out with lovely people in the audience. Big love also to the chicken-girl.
- Hitting a magical house party stocked with cute dogs, delightful people, and 18-year-old rye and then attending the unadvertised 80s dance party at which many of my colleagues did, in fact, rock their faces off.
- Discovering that yes, it’s true, a lot of people really have figured out that content matters. Related: really enjoying the panel I was on and discovering that some other people enjoyed it, too.
Less Wonderful Things
- By the time we left, I caught myself avoiding the eye of any woman under the age of 30 wearing eyeliner and a tight t-shirt, lest she try to sell me something. BOO. On the other hand, the Bolthouse free juice/smoothie people were a great relief—regular people giving away something yummy that I actually wanted. (You can apparently get their juice at Gristedes, Food Emporium, and D’Agostino’s, btw, if you live in NYC; also, their chai is dairy-free and they’re family-owned.)
- Some of the panels were really crowded and thus impossible to get into if you were coming from another panel on the other side of the convention center. My response was to outdoors and roll in the grass/drink beer/have fun, but it did cut down on the amount of official programming I saw.
- The evacuation during the Arc90 guys’ presentation, which I was really enjoying. They apparently reconvened after the evacuation, but I didn’t see the rest of the talk, and I hope they post slides/audio soon.
I’ll post separately about content stuff and our panel and that kind of thing tomorrow, but for now: thanks to all for a really good time. I look forward to seeing you again next year if not before then.
I think SXSW Sold Out is a natural conclusion to seeing so much over-the-top marketing, VIP parties, social media, etc; especially when you arrive late on Monday afternoon like I did. I came in with a different vibe (to talk and not drink) for my talk and it was tough to not look at what was around me cynically. ”
The event we do (Bike Hugger) was originally intended to get people outside of the convention center and also a reaction to the corporate “Frog Party.”
We remembered too what it was like to just connect with friends and not stand in long lines to then stand around in an overpacked club trying to hear each other talk.
SXSW goes the way many good things do, like your fav restaurant that’s under new management and removed your favorite dish from the menu. I think what’s happening is the people that run SXSW have created a monster with little hope of reining in it. They’re just hanging onto it’s tendrils trying to steer it in a direction they think the community is headed.
My one strong suggestion is that they kill the popularity contest panel picker and bring back editorial. Social Media Experts running facebook ads for their panels was as bad as Fortune 100 companies “street marketing” as if they were “keeping it real” with their bros.
For example, we had marketers crash our party uninvited because they were so desperate to get noticed at SXSW. That’s a degraded brand that turns into a NASCAR, strip-mall, neon-signs-with-tits-out, yelling at you to get noticed type of event.
Not the SXSW I remember or want to contribute to.
“My one strong suggestion is that they kill the popularity contest panel picker and bring back editorial. Social Media Experts running facebook ads for their panels was as bad as Fortune 100 companies “street marketing” as if they were “keeping it real” with their bros.”
THIS. The PanelPicker is a lousy idea. I’d venture to say that some of the best ideas were from people without ridiculously huge followings and therefore couldn’t get the votes required to speak. I’d like to see interactive with much more challenging content, not the outdated tripe that was news a few years ago.
Yowch.
I agree that something needs to be done about the panel picker. For that matter, I feel the same way about Cog’oake. Editorial control is better than popularity contests.
Still, I had a lot of fun. I too come to Austin mainly for the conversation, and I won’t go to noisy bars (yelling makes me cough like a consumptive) or stand in lines, so for me, it’s mostly been about making my own fun outside the main circus.
Well, I suspect, too, that I have a different perspective because I live here, right, so I’m less interested in the parties and the places. (and not that they weren’t great and I did meet some very awesome people.)
But most of the people I met and hung out with were Austinites anyway. (Of course, it took an international conference to get us all together…) But, that said, I would love the Main Event to be a little less…flashy? I don’t know. Just more substance. More, “Good God, why didn’t *I* think of that?!”
Of course, I have no idea how to make that happen. If I did I’d call up Hugh right now