| Deciding between the CMJ music festival in New York or South by Southwest (SXSW)? SXSW offers more bands and venues in closer proximity to each other than the clubs scattered all over Manhattan. Visitors gain from the cheaper standard of living in Austin, so SXSW is quite the bargain. Plus, the friendly locals make the city an endlessly hospitable place to be – Austin is the live music capital of the world and it shines brightly during SXSW.
Who attends? Bands, media, label types, entertainment lawyers and fans from around the globe. Bands are weeded down to 1,400 performers from 8,000 applicants, but anyone can attend as a fan. You don’t need to be a hipster, but you do need a lot of stamina and earplugs to get through the event. Although some shows permit entry to those 18 years old, you can attend the most gigs if you are 21 years of age or older.
There are three ways to experience SXSW – purchasing a music conference and festival badge, purchasing a wristband or winging it on a prayer. The badge costs a ton of dough ($375 US until September 30 and then rising in increments), but provides the easiest and fastest entry into shows. Logically, the more shows you see, the cheaper the badge becomes. The second option is purchasing a wristband – at $110 to $175 US, the wristband is cheaper than the badge, but finding one is like winning the lottery. Wristbands are for sale to Austinites just before SXSW begins, online at www.southbywristbands.com and once again to badge holders at the beginning of the festival. They infamously sell out in nanoseconds.
Neither wristbands or badges guarantee admission (lineups develop for hot shows), but badge holders are given preference – separate lineups and private gigs. The third option is to go down and wing it without the badge or wristband and see how many day parties you can catch. If they’re not free, pay admission at the door and hear as much music as the daylight affords.
The moment you know that you will be attending SXSW, my advice is to register for a music badge and hotel room, since doing the former necessitates the latter. The selection of hotels is very good. Study a map of Austin, note the 6th Street District and the Red River District epicentres, and then find a nearby hotel within your budget. The Austin Motel and San Jose Hotel are very hep and located in the stylish South Congress, but are further away from most of the live music venues.
SXSW requires a lot of walking (bring excellent shoes) – having a hotel room close to the action is very helpful for nights when you want to fall into bed. I registered early and stayed at a hotel five blocks away for $100 US per night. The walking was all uphill at the end of a night, but it was a great location. Friends were staying at hotels miles away and paid $25 per day on cab fare to commute into the downtown district.
If you are attending the music festival, arrive the day before. SXSW is impeccably organized and friendly, but arriving in advance will allow you to register early, bypass the crowds and save time. During your extra day, you can acquaint yourself with the lay of the land and catch part of the SXSW film festival. You may also need the extra time to lug the free tote-bag of goodies home to your hotel. Along with your badge, you’ll be handed a conference bag that weighs in at just over 15 pounds and is full of free mags, maps, menus, coupons for free drinks, promotional items (lighters, toothbrushes, aspirin) and compilation CDs.
Weeks before the festival begins, seminar schedules and performance announcements are released so registrants can begin assembling their must-see lists. Seminars begin in the morning and feature industry insiders and popular indie rock stars sharing insights on the music business and politics. Unofficial day parties begin in the late morning and consist of hundreds of bands playing back-to-back short sets throughout Austin. Official showcases begin in the evening (8 p.m. to 2 a.m.) and require more dedication. Unlike daytime party-hopping, nightly showcases are so populated that it’s best to select one and stay put rather than leave and waste time waiting in another busy lineup. Also, there are plenty of after parties for night owls who feel like rocking out past 3 a.m.!
Private party details are disclosed in the days before the festival begins. Badge holders can secure early invites during the SXSW trade show in the main hub of the Austin Convention Center. Jane, Vice, Yahoo! and countries like our beloved Canada and New Zealand offer free barbecues with bands. It may be counterintuitive, but to attend these parties (listed on sxsw.com and on the unofficial SXSW info forum on Yahoo!), you must e-mail a request to be invited. If space permits, you are e-mailed an invitation. Then, you e-mail your RSVP and you are set to go. Usually free drinks and barbecue are available at these events, so you could feasibly have dinner paid for each night if you plan things right.
Don’t panic if you look at the showcase schedule and see that all your favourite bands are playing at the same time. Between day parties and nightly showcases, you can usually catch everyone you want to see. Also, with 1,400 bands carefully selected from the more than 8,000 bands that applied, remember that you’re seeing a nice selection of carefully screened talent. No matter the band, everyone is playing like their career depends on it – and the audience reaps the rewards.
Like others, I found that catching as much music as possible was my first priority, while sleeping came in second and eating third – a crying shame given the exceptional Tex Mex cuisine of Austin. Vegetarians and vegans will be impressed with the veggie friendly variety, too. SXSW has more than 6o stages and many of them are at places with incredible food – with hibiscus iced tea that is intensely addictive. Eat when you can (it’s cheap and delicious) because you’ll definitely need the fuel for all the walking.
Extras to pack from home – tons of earplugs, printed schedules of your must-see bands (with plans B, C and D), a cellphone or text messaging device (for late-breaking news on surprise gigs) and a messenger bag to hold bottled water and treasures from different merch booths. SXSW takes place during spring and it’s usually T-shirt weather, but have a micro umbrella ready for the odd rain shower.
Everything is within walking distance, but there are options for days when your feet need a break. Taxi rides are usually brief and inexpensive. Free rides are available within downtown on the adorable Austin shuttle known as the Dillo.
While the festival runs from Wednesday to Sunday, not a lot happens on Sunday. Aside from a softball tournament, the hysterical Chicken Shit Bingo at Ginny's and Alejandro Escovedo’s annual Sunday night gig at the Continental Club, most indie rockers are packing up and heading out on Sunday. Still, there are some folks (such as yours truly) who delay returning home early to take in the beauty of Austin. A must-see is the growing bat population hanging below the Congress Avenue Bridge.
Last words of advice – remember to be flexible and open to serendipitous moments. During one rain shower, I ducked into the Hideout café for a quick coffee before exploring the Austin Museum of Art. A SXSW volunteer suggested that I head to the back of the café, where a door leading to a small screening room featured a great surprise – a showing of the film Heartworn Highways (featuring Townes van Zandt, Steve Earle, Charlie Daniels and David Allan Coe). Remember, there is tons to experience and many new friends to be made. Many of the best adventures at SXSW are unscheduled.
Have a great time and see you in Texas!
USEFUL LINKS
· Official website of South by Southwest – www.sxsw.com
· Unofficial SXSW Yahoo! Group – http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/unofficial_sxsw_info/
· Unofficial info on day parties – http://www.showlistaustin.com/ and http://homepage.mac.com/dwilliams24/LilDebsMonkeyRanch/SXSWdayparties.htm
· Maps (or: How many venues can you pack into a several block radius in Austin?) – http://2006.sxsw.com/pdf/SXSW_2006_Music_Venue_Map.pdf and http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/downtown/downloads/e6th_2page.pdf |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.