If there’s one thing that’s true about South By Southwest, it’s that much of it is based on access–the combinations of badges, wristbands, hand-stamps, and nods that get people into and behind the scenes of shows can be downright dizzying. To figure out what, exactly, it’s like to experience the festival with not so much as a wristband, we enlisted chief assumer (and former Austinite) Andy Beta to give us the outsider’s perspective. In his second dispatch, he gets a glimpse inside the Fader‘s downtown marketing complex.
The first day of SXSW was a raw early-spring affair that had some venues even turning on their fireplaces, so it was probably appropriate that the first band we heard was the New York City dream-country outfit The Shivers. More »
We’re just going to keep visiting Beerland–home of the “don’t do coke” crewel embroiderly–every day to see what sorts of annoyed signage its employees are going to turn out next. More »
We’ve been sending along regular updates as the South By Southwest music conference drags along, but we also wanted to give you a big-picture view of each day, so we’ll be doing daily wrapups that sum up the best and worst moments. After the jump, we break down the first full day of parties, shows, and ill-advised marketing.
Step one: Paint your dog green (left). Step two: Paint yourself green. Step three: Hire three dozen people. Paint them green and instruct them to swarm an intersection with your band’s flyers. Step four: Get a bullhorn. More »
– We have a feeling the people in the above photo are marketing something colossally terrible, but you can’t deny that this image says a lot about the lengths people will go to just so they can spend their days in roller heaven. More »
We took in a brief, but enchanting, set by the Welshman who performs under the name The Gentle Good tonight on the recommendation of a pal; with a velvety voice and accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, he crooned folk songs and lullabies in Welsh and English, and he closed out his set with a… More »
If there’s one thing that’s true about South By Southwest, it’s that much of it is based on access–the combinations of badges, wristbands, hand-stamps, and nods that get people into and behind the scenes of shows can be downright dizzying. To figure out what, exactly, it’s like to experience the festival with not so much as a wristband, we enlisted chief assumer (and former Austinite) Andy Beta to give us the outsider’s perspective. In his first dispatch, he notices some swarms and storms, as well as a few Swedish horsemen.
Austin P.D. hauls off a guerrilla marketing posterer for Microsoft Zune on 6th St. at SXSW. And to think we were so proud of Microsoft’s marketing squad for turning down the volume on that SUV while it was parked on an Austin side street earlier today. Zuned! More »
We knew the Voice’s music cred was shriveling, but yikes–the Bravery? Why not just have one of the editorial interns fart into a helmet, and call it a night? More »
