FWIW- My thoughts are similar on SXSW interactive. I have been going for several years, always finding that there was some amount of serendipity to putting so many nerds and vc-types in a very small space (see PG's essay on SV: http://www.paulgraham.com/siliconvalley.html). This year I found it too chaotic. It's a nightmare to get in anywhere or know what's going on, even if you are "VIP." I had the good fortune to be on several groupme groups which helped though - people can tell you what's hot at a given time. There aught to be an app...
This year I found less interesting people and more corporate schtick. sxsw is so mainstream that Jimmy Kimmel hosted his late night show from sxsw this year. 5 years ago startups were actually using sxsw as successful launching pads, now it's Cottonelle vs. Charmin (actually 2 products that had expensive booths at sxsw this year).
That being said, I'll probably still go next year because I love Austin and many of my friends go.
It's similar to burning man though - every year people complain that it's jumped the shark because it got too corporate, and every year more people go.
My experience this year was exactly the opposite to yours. I too have been going for several years, and after a couple of "I'm done; not coming back next year", I decided to have change my approach.
This year I established 5 basic principles:
1. Absolutely no panels. Only solo or dual sessions.
2. No marketing sessions (nor sessions by marketing folks)
3. No keynotes (except for Snowden and Assange)
4. Go beyond the headline, and analyze the speaker. At minimum the person must have an interesting personal or professional story, regardless the talk.
5. The more technical or obscure the session, the better.
In the end this strategy paid off nicely. This was one of the best years, and the first to make me want to come back next year. I watched some gems like Philip Rosedale (Second Life, now High Fidelity), Pinterest engineers talking about their dev stack in a candid and informal conversation, Carl Bass from Autodesk, Print the Legend (the movie, and then the discussion with the film directors, plus Max from FormLabs and an ex-MakerBot), NASA, DARPA, nice demos at Startup Accelerator, and a lot more.
I certainly missed a few nice keynotes (like Neil deGrasse Tyson), but hopefully some of the sessions will be posted later.
I also wasn't sure if another poster was kidding about Ukranian 36-bit vinylcore bands. I couldn't find any references to those.
I suppose I really can't argue about how nice it would be to "get refreshed" in the middle of the day in Austin, so I can't hate on Cottonelle. However, their page says I have to engage in conversations with "talking bums" to earn refreshing services. I'm not kidding, check my link above.
This year I found less interesting people and more corporate schtick. sxsw is so mainstream that Jimmy Kimmel hosted his late night show from sxsw this year. 5 years ago startups were actually using sxsw as successful launching pads, now it's Cottonelle vs. Charmin (actually 2 products that had expensive booths at sxsw this year).
That being said, I'll probably still go next year because I love Austin and many of my friends go.
It's similar to burning man though - every year people complain that it's jumped the shark because it got too corporate, and every year more people go.