SXSW turns Austin into a nonstop party where corporate sponsors run free venues and world-famous artists like Prince play tiny rooms. The narrator shares tricks for sneaking into shows: dress as a fire marshal, pretend to be a sponsor, or hit the tuxedo parties. His best week was 2013, when he caught Prince and other top acts over 10 days.
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What is south by Southwest? Let's talk about it. First off, south by Southwest, as we call it here in Austin. People who live here, we call it South By. But south by is a crazy convention party. It's a music convention. It's a film convention, It's a gaming convention, it's a tech convention that literally transforms downtown Austin overnight. What was once an office is now a YouTube house. What was once a restaurant is now the Samsung house. What was once the parking lot for our newspaper is now a crazy concert venue. What was once a parking garage is now a crazy concert venue matched with a big party. They literally transform everything in this city. So these massive companies come in with millions and millions of dollars and throw these crazy, ridiculous parties. Part of the free parties is there's free food. Free food everywhere. Tamales. Oh, look at all that guac. Should we ask that? Part of the parties is that there's free alcohol. Part of the parties is that there are free bands that play, and some of them are the biggest ones in the world. For instance, there was one party that I went to four years ago now that had A Tribe Called Quest that opened up for Prince. It was the craziest musical experience of my entire life. Prince got on and played for three hours. Three hours. And to give you an idea of how crazy it is at that point in time, I had to pick whether I wanted to see Prince or whether I wanted to see Justin Timberlake, both of them playing at the same time. And the best part about it, Prince played in front of 300 people. It was the last time that he ever played in Austin. So I will chalk that up as a great decision to go see Prince. And the best part is you get to see these massive artists in these tiny, tiny little venues. What else do you get with South By? You get long lines. So this is what a South by line looks like. You get sneaking into venues that you're not supposed to be in. I had a friend that dressed up like a fire marshal and got. And got eight of our friends not only into a show that was not supposed to be open anymore, but got them into VIP in the very front. It's about being whatever you can, acting like you are whoever you are, telling people that you work for a company that you don't work for. Come on, tell us how you got us VIP passes. Pretended I was a sponsor, and then she got us VIP passes to get to see cassette today. Getting VIP because of it later on today, it's about dressing up in tuxedos for what we call Sophisticated Saturday. It's about finding speakeasies that pop up out of nowhere. It's about seeing some of the best street performers you've ever seen in your entire life. There are many people, so many people. It's a great people watching experience. Isn't that right, Crazy Hat Man? It's about drunk people. So many drunk people. All in all, south by is 10 to 11 of the craziest days you will ever have in your entire life. You have to be okay with sneaking into shows, with pretending you're people that you're not with, acting like you're on the list. All in all, south by is one of the craziest things that you can do. But in order to be a seasoned veteran, you have to be down for whatever, but having some of the best times of your life. The best week of my life was south by of 2013, 10 days straight. We saw Prince. We saw some of the biggest artists in the world in some of the smallest venues, and it was 11 days straight. So that is what south by is. And I'm gonna leave you with the best band that I saw this year, which is a British band named Aquilo. And it might be Aquilo, I'm not quite sure, but this is a quick clip of the intimate performance that we saw with them. Sam, Thank you so much.
