SXSW: The Basics

A couple of words about SXSW.

It has three segments – green Music, blue Film, and orange Interactive. You can get badges for either one of the three, a Gold badge (Film + Interactive), or a Platinum one (all three). All of them cost a fortune, and the Platinum one also requires you donate an organ.

A peg lower are wristbands – you can get a Film one for 80 bucks, and a Music one for 180. Wristbands place you in the queue behind badge holders, but in front of general admission.

The Film and Interactive parts start off at roughly the same time, then Interactive ends and is replaced by Music. Film lasts throughout. That’s the basic structure. It’s also bullshit. Once Music arrives, everything else ceases to matter. It dwarves the other two segments combined – it’s spread out over nearly 200 venues, and consists of about 2000 separate concerts. It’s ridiculous and all-encompassing.

That is why everyone Film-related who knows what they’re doing LEAVES the festival halfway through. Barely any new films are screened in the latter part, and so the only people that stick around are clueless morons like me and Gosia, and Platinum badges.

This year, there were about… seven or eight Film venues, including two so-called “Satelite” ones that I never saw, because they were somewhere outside the venue map and required some sort of transportation (that’s literally all the info you are given, so I suspect they’re just a money-laundering scheme, no one I talked to actually went to either one of those). The big marquee one is the Paramount, a beautiful old-timey theatre with equally old-timey ushers and a general aura of grandeur. It has 1200 seats, so that’s where all the flashy premieres are held. Of note is also the Alamo Drafthouse – a cinema where you can order drinks and food to be brought to you during the screening. And I don’t mean coke and popcorn – there’s burgers, salads, pizzas, various alcoholic drinks, and – my favorite – adult milkshakes. Yup, the kind with booze in them. I spent an entire day in that cinema (had three screenings there, back to back), and I have to say it was a very good day for me.

The whole thing is very well organized. There are separate queues for the various echelons of spectators, and if the queue is long, at some point you get issued a queue card – a tiny piece of paper with the name of the screening and a number that is lower than the amount of seats at the venue. Basically, if you get a queue card, you’re guaranteed to get into this particular screening, so the stress is off, and you can go pee or grab a bite.

The queues lend themselves to a sort of “queue culture” that is one of the most fun aspects of the festival. People often just strike up conversations randomly, and since you’re sometimes in line for close to an hour, you could end up exchanging numbers. These random chats are also aided by the fact that festival badges are like these big registration plates you wear around your neck – I’ve had complete strangers pause for a second to openly peer at my badge before moving on.

Most of the cinemas are downtown, within walking distance, but there are also two that are south of the river (which is for some reason called a LAKE), and for those you get special festival shuttles with counter intuitive AC (as in: blasting Antarctic chill on an already cold evening, or gentle warmth on a 31 degree day) and opaque windows that make it impossible for you to keep track of where you are at the moment. These are provided for Film and Interactive people, the Music crowd would just suck them into its pulsating mass, and there are – as I mentioned – almost 200 music venues, many of them on closed-off streets, so there’s really no point for Music transportation.

On top of the film screenings, there are also panels (that you need a badge to get into), and parties (that a badge helps you get into). Panels are pretty self-explanatory, and parties are free booze watering holes where you’re supposed to network, I guess.

Throughout the festival there is also a whole lot of free events that operate on a first come, first serve basis. They offer free food, free booze, free t-shirts… anything, really. Apparently there was a tumblr page dedicated to posting directions to the free stuff events of the day, and the festival-goers like to say that theoretically you could get through the entire SXSW not spending a dime on food, alcohol, or clothes.

One last thing: the people. There were some seriously pretty people around. The place was  crawling with them. And most of them wore orange (Interactive) badges. I have no idea at which point gym memberships and grooming became part of the gaming industry landscape, but at times I found myself questioning my career choices. It was actually enough for me to start taking pictures of people, like a bona fide pervert, but I got caught - and judged, hard - by one of my subjects very early on, and decided I just didn't have the balls. Oh, and also the moral aspect. That too, totally.