The Ides of March…also known as Convergence Day at SXSW 2016. This was the last day of Interactive and the first day of Music. (Film continues throughout the festival.) Daytime highs were again over 90°, but dropped after sunset, when Bill and I visited some official SXSW parties.
Day 4 of SXSW was hot (90+) with long lines. I was disappointed that I couldn’t get into the main afternoon sessions. But there’s always something else interesting to see and do at SXSW Interactive.
I chose three popular, celebrity-focused Interactive sessions today, and all involved long lines or waits. But I was not disappointed. Later in the day, I looked around the Trade Show at the Austin Convention Center and then walked over to the Zach Scott Theatre for another movie premiere.
Although I enjoyed seeing President Obama on Friday, I felt like Saturday was my first real day at SXSW 2016. I attended many interesting and informative Interactive sessions and finished with a documentary in the evening.
My South by Southwest began with a big surprise—I won a ticket to see President Obama. Most of my first SXSW morning was spent retrieving my General Admission ticket and then waiting for 90+ minutes to pass through security and enter the Long Center. I was in the upper balcony, but at least my seat was in the center of the first row.
Bill and I picked up our South by Southwest badges and guides over at the Austin Convention Center this afternoon. We breezed through registration, but tomorrow’s lines will be a different story.
By now you all are probably sick of reading my entries about South by Southwest 2015. But I wanted to add one last post about some unusual things that I saw over the last ten days.
The final day of SXSW was wet and dreary. Standing around in the rain did not seem appealing, so I hung out again at the Austin Convention Center. While there, I visited the Music Gear Expo and the Flatstock 48 Poster Show, and listened to a few more bands. I was glad to hear that the free concert at the recently-remodeled Auditorium Shores was canceled. It would have been a shame to wreck the new turf so quickly.
Folks are calling this day “South by South Wet.” Two weather fronts converged in the early afternoon, dropping temperatures and causing rain showers for the rest of the day. Like many others, I stayed indoors and rotated between the three stages in the Austin Convention Center in the afternoon. The rain temporarily slowed down in the early evening, so Bill and I walked up to St. David’s Sanctuary. The place was packed, partly due to the excellent artist lineup, but also because the entrance line was inside.
It’s hard to fathom how many bands are in town for SXSW, and impossible to hear even a fraction of them. According to the SXSW website, this year features “over 2300 bands representing 57 foreign countries at over 100 venues.” That’s a lot of music.