More than anything else about my trip to Austin, I've been asked where my traveling companion, Alejandro Gomez, and I parked the minivan that we slept in for most of a week. The answer is right about here, near the State Cemetery in an adjacent deadend road.
It was perfect for our needs. A few pedestrians wandered by late at night, and only one morning were we awoken by a crying woman who said she needed a ride. Gomez told her there were a bunch of people hanging out at a record store down the road, and she might be able to get a ride from one of them.
Neither of us paid for a single drink at a bar in Austin. Wi-Fi is free all over the city, though the government-sponsored bandwidth is slow to the point of allowing only the grittiest video uploads. Bringing our own bikes made getting around town fun. And regardless, Texas gas is cheap - under $3.25 per gallon. There were too many free shows at any given time to comprehend, leaving no cause for worry about missing official-wristband-purchaser-exclusive events.
We were denied attendance at only one show because I chose to opt out of buying credentials. It was the live-streamed Boiler Room DJ blowout sponsored by Ray-Ban, and I got turned away at the door after waiting in line for more than two hours. It was a brutal, never-before-experienced sensation. But spending that time queued up with a throng of happenstance acquaintances, sucking a pint of Wild Irish Rose and sipping Bud Light through straws in Styrofoam McDonald’s cups indubitably clued me into SXSW’s legitimate nature at least as much attending any concert.
My hope was that by attending the festival, I could learn about the nature of this liminal music performance period as an economic and social force. Short of that, the goal was to learn how this festival happens, and what it means for the town of Austin. The latter part of the question is probably better answered by the documentary Echotone, which deals with how this festival affects Austin's culture and creates complications.
During our last night in town, we met Tina Phan, a journalist I got to know through the Poynter Institute in 2010. She’s covered SXSW for the last three years as a reporter for the "Austin American Statesman." With her experience covering the festival, she astutely diverted my attention to people with even more experienced than herself when I asked her to describe what the festival is all about.
What she underscored was that, even as it’s become one of the utmost globally prestigious organizations of its kind, SXSW flies by the seat of its pants. A yard of congregated food trucks near the northeast bank of the Colorado River, Phan said, only got put together a week before the festival began. Her plan to spend the week of the music festival focusing on international artists fell through when the acts she planned on filming for in-depth features got bounced back at customs.
She also reiterated how important it is to think about the festival based on all its components, including the Interactive experience the week before the music side of the festival. When things end, she said the cleanup effort begins “that night.” After that, life goes on for Austinians pretty much as usual. After turning around her material in a quick, professional manner, Phan went back to photographing pug puppies for the "Statesman" the next day. People in her city appreciated the festival as a break from drudgery and, in a most significant way, an influx of outsider cash.
"It was such an incredible experience," Hopkins said. "And I feel extremely lucky to have been given the opportunity to use SXSW as the platform by which to launch House of Card." Surpassing any immediate sales, she said the biggest payoff was the buzz generated by the venture. "The greatest reward for me was the amazing people I encountered, and the wonderful connections I made," Hopkins said.
In a post uploaded hours ago, Anthony Fantano attempted to dissect the importance of popular attention in generating phenomenal musical trajectories with the help of his YouTube audience. “It’s just one hype cycle after another, and it seems like right now in the music industry this is the most profitable model,” Fantano said. Musical names blowing up on one or two hits could mean artists with a propensity for success and great artistry are being acknowledged and supported with newly officious momentum.
The ascription of industry forces as being “too big to fail” has such a queasly laffable catchiness because it implicates that massive retooling or downright disintegration is the reasonable next step. The demand for forthright innovation is at least as high as ever, and, in this "American" tradition, requires people out of doors. That’s a reference to Austin and why this festival is more important than ever, why it keeps attracting more people, money and attention.
I also stood one afternoon like a sap for 25 minutes outside Viceland, the media conglomerate’s central pavilion. That followed failed attempts to squeeze in by means of secondhand wristbands, one found in the trashcan of a liquor store and another given to me from Lakutis, a rapper we encountered exiting the area on a pink mini skateboard.
On the south side of Viceland’s tent, some hundred people stood and sat, biding their time in the blazing Texan afternoon sunlight starting at noon to see a Kendrick Lamar show. SXSW activities are accessible to people free of charge is an extremely cool, extremely encouraging component of the experience. It led some people to act insane while demonstrating their ability to hold out for no-cost entertainment. When I made it through the venue’s barbed-wire palisade, I got a complementary drink containing Bullitt Bourbon, red wine and a frozen cherry as well as the chance to see “They Die By Dawn.” Karen Ahre occupied the seat next to mine and introduced herself as a friend of the director’s girlfriend. She flew in from St. Paul for the week, largely to attend the screening.
While exuding purely admirational enthusiasm for the filmmaker’s success in funding production and distribution, “The bourbon,” Ahre said, gesturing to one of Bullit’s dramatic illuminated installations, “has kind of overshadowed the movie.”
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