31 Facts About SXSW

SXSW is run by the company SXSW, LLC, which organizes conferences, trade shows, festivals, and other events.

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.

SXSW caused controversy by delivering a speech, written by her then-husband Bart Bull, criticizing white musicians for stealing music from African American artists; and then later during the same conference when she tried to kick the band Two Nice Girls off of a benefit concert, a move that some called anti-gay, due to Two Nice Girls' overtly lesbian image.

In 1993, SXSW moved into the Austin Convention Center, where it is still held.

Related searches

In 1994, SXSW added a component for film and other media, named the "SXSW Film and Multimedia Conference".

Journalist Meredith Melnick of Time magazine called this purchase a turning point for SXSW, leading to a greater interest among film studio executives in attending the festival in person.

Keynote presenter for SXSW Interactive was Seth Priebatsch, founder and CEO of the mobile-gaming platform SCVNGR.

Also in attendance at SXSW was boxing legend Mike Tyson, promoting his new iPhone game with RockLive at the Screenburn Arcade.

Standout technology of the 2012 SXSW Interactive was generally stated to be "social discovery" mobile apps, which let users locate other nearby users.

SXSW Film saw the premiere of two major Hollywood films: The Cabin in the Woods and 21 Jump Street.

SXSW Film had premieres of the big-budget films Neighbors, Veronica Mars and Chef, and Cesar Chavez had its North American premiere.

SXSW Interactive featured a keynote speech by NSA leaker Edward Snowden, via streaming video, about privacy rights.

SXSW Film screened 145 feature films, an all-time high for the festival.

Films that premiered at SXSW Film include Song to Song, Baby Driver, Atomic Blonde, Gemini, The Ballad of Lefty Brown.

Major companies and brands which exhibited at SXSW included IBM, Intel, Panasonic, Nintendo, GE, Giorgio Armani, Mazda and National Geographic.

The band presented a letter from their American record label stating that both their performances at KEXP and at SXSW were for promotional purposes only, but this failed to convince officials at the airport.

Major performers during SXSW Music included Tinashe, Rae Sremmurd, Rita Coolidge, Salt-N-Pepa and Khalid.

SXSW 2018 coincided with a string of bombings in Austin, which had begun on March 2 and ended on March 21, when the presumed perpetrator, Mark Anthony Conditt, blew himself up after being discovered by police.

Films entered at SXSW Film included Us, The Beach Bum, Long Shot, Booksmart and The Highwaymen.

However, in the run up to the conference, numerous companies and organizations began canceling their SXSW attendance, including Twitter, Facebook, Vevo, Intel, Mashable, Universal Music Group, Amazon, Entertainment Weekly, TikTok, SAP, Netflix, Apple, Indeed, WarnerMedia, The Washington Post, and IBM.

Filmmakers scheduled to screen films at SXSW were given the option to have their films play exclusively, and for free, on Prime Video in the US for a 10-day "virtual film festival".

Films and miniseries that premiered at SXSW include Demi Lovato: Dancing with the Devil, Hysterical, Jakob's Wife, Violet, Dear Mr Brody, Here Before, The Fallout, The Lost Sons, Introducing, Selma Blair, Lily Topples the World, Not Going Quietly, The Return: Life After ISIS, Fruits of Labor and United States vs Reality Winner.

Organizers of SXSW planned for a hybrid event ; all registered in-person participants and attendees were required to provide proof of full vaccination against COVID-19, or a recent negative COVID-19 test, as a condition of receiving their badge.

Films that premiered at SXSW Film include Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Lost City, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood, I Love My Dad and Master of Light.

Related searches

Major performers for SXSW Music included Ashanti, Dolly Parton, Shawn Mendes, Beck and Oleksandra "Sasha" Zaritska, the frontperson of Ukrainian band KAZKA, who planned to make their US debut at SXSW, but the other two members were drafted into military service due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Major organizations and brands which exhibited at SXSW included Porsche, the University of Arizona, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, Paramount+, and several galleries devoted to NFTs, including the Doodles project, co-created by artist Evan Keast.

New spinoff event, SXSW Sydney, was scheduled to be held for the first time from October 15 to 22,2023 in Sydney, Australia.

SXSW is the highest revenue-producing event outside of athletic and other events associated with The University of Texas at Austin for the Austin economy, with an estimated economic impact of $190.

The average SXSW registrant stayed in Austin longer in 2016, spending an average of 5.

In October 2015, SXSW cancelled two video game panels scheduled for the 2016 festival due to threats of violence made to the festival hosting the sessions.