This comment is the essence of the problem. SXSW was first and foremost a music festival. For me, the interactive emphasis signaled the impending decline. When my tech company employer started launching major products at SXSW, I knew that the music festival was fucked.
I really don't mean to come across as some curmudgeonly asshole but I just don't understand why every great festival ends up getting ruined by people who want to make it into something else. Why can't we be happy with simple excellence? Sundance Film Festival, for example, used to be about movies. The movies are still there but the private parties and the celebrity product giveaways and Main St. celebrity interviews on the E! channel are what most tourists come to SFF these days. It's tragic.
Amen. I had to do double takes in the past few years when I read about some tech thing at SXSW. This year I thought there must have been a hash collision on SXSW and I was reading about some other convention or conference.
It's like CES suddenly becoming all about crazy Ukrainian 36-bit vinylcore bands that were barely allowed into the country because CBP was afraid they'd claim asylum.
You're acting as if SXSW is(was) the only draw to Austin's music scene. ACL, Fun Fun Fest, X other festivals and the hundreds of different venues with bands playing every night all make up a a part of it.
