South by So What?!

South by Southwest
The official logo for SXSW, 2017
Dates	March (dates vary)
Frequency	Annual
Location(s)	Austin, Texas, U.S.
Years active	30
Inaugurated	1987
Founders	Roland Swenson, Louis Jay Meyers, Louis Black, Nick Barbaro
Next event	March 9-18, 2018
Attendance	SXSW Music: 28,119 SXSW Interactive: 30,621 SXSW Film: 16,297 SXSWEdu: 4,260 Other Exhibits/Parties: 152,000
Organized by	SXSW, LLC
Website
www.sxsw.com

South by Southwest (abbreviated as SXSW) is an annual conglomerate of film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. It began in 1987, and has continued to grow in both scope and size every year. In 2011, the conference lasted for 10 days with SXSW Interactive lasting for 5 days, Music for 6 days, and Film running concurrently for 9 days.

SXSW is run by the company SXSW, LLC which organizes conferences, trade shows, festivals, and other events. In addition to the three main South by Southwest festivals, the company runs three other conferences, two in Austin: SXSWedu, a conference on educational innovation, and SXSW Eco, an environmental conference; and one in Las Vegas: SXSW V2V, a conference focused on innovative startups.

SXSW Music is the largest music festival of its kind in the world, with more than 2,000 acts as of 2014. SXSW Music offers artist-provided music and video samples of featured artists at each festival via their official YouTube channel.

The music event has grown from 700 registrants in 1987 to over 28,000 registrants. SXSW Film and SXSW Interactive events have grown every year, most recently bringing over 51,000 registrants to Austin every March.

Bands must cover their own expenses for travel and lodging at the event. All performers are offered a cash payment or a wristband package that allows access to all music events.

SXSW Film Conference spans five days of conference panels and sessions, and welcomes filmmakers of all levels. Programming consists of keynote speakers, panels, workshops, mentor sessions and more, with expert filmmakers and industry leaders.

In 2015, the SXSW Film Conference programmed over 250 sessions with 735 speakers. Past notable speakers include Jon Favreau, Mark Duplass, Ava DuVernay, Ryan Gosling, Nicolas Cage, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Tilda Swinton, Amy Schumer, Sally Field, Joss Whedon, Christine Vachon, RZA, Matthew McConaughey, Danny Boyle, Seth MacFarlane, Catherine Hardwicke, Richard Linklater, David Gordon Green, Harmony Korine, Henry Rollins, Sarah Green and Robert Rodriguez. Although the film festival often highlights independently produced films and emerging directing talent with unique visions, the festival has long served studios as a starting point for their comedies, using enthusiastic fans as a barometer of how they might play in wide release.