Austin360 blogs > Michael Corcoran's SXSW Journal > Archives > 2008 > March > 17 > Entry
A Letter To Andy
(Note: Former New York Rocker editor Andy Schwartz has been coming to SXSW since the beginning, but family commitments kept him in New York this year.)
Hey, Andy-
We missed you this year at Liggerpalooza, where the freeloaders have run wild. The kids who made Napster such a phenomenon years ago are now all over 21 and so they snag a few party laminates and download free booze and food all day, laughing that only suckers need to buy badges and wristbands.
Our friends over at SX have been harping for years that “parasite” parties are hurting the official segment of the conference and until recently I thought they were just being paranoid and overreactive. Especially when they themselves went into the private party biz, setting up tent shows for corporate and cultural interests at the Brush Creek Square.
But, check this out, Andy: when wristbands went on sale to the public last month, using a lottery system to control demand and limit scalpers, the 4,000 reduced-price bands did not sell out. Meanwhile, paid registration is flat, even as the number of acts (1,700) was 300 more than ever before.
The success of SXSW is built on alcohol sales. That’s why the clubs turn themselves over to SXSW volunteers and production crews for four days out of the year. You’ve heard it over and over: clubs can do six weeks of business in four days. I’m going to ask around, but I’d bet the clubs didn’t do as well as in earlier years. Who’s going to buy six or seven beers at a SXSW evening showcase when they’ve been drinking for free all day? (Well, besides Canadians?)
When bartenders aren’t as busy as they used to be, clubs will opt out of SXSW and book their own showcases or rent themselves to the highest bidder. You remember how big New Music Seminar was? This was one of the reasons it crumbled in 1994.
What most people don’t realize is that, until they get the clubs under contract, the only thing SXSW really owns is its name and the rather staid and underattended goings on at the Convention Center. Everything else can be taken away.
The folks who put on SXSW are not visionaries. They’re not doing something of their own invention. Their idea was, simply, to do in Austin was New Music Seminar did in New York and what Popkomm did in Berlin and what MIDEM does in Cannes. Fortune smiled when it turned out that Austin was the perfect city for such a convention based on live music. You’d spend $50 a night in cabs at NMS just to see three bands; with Austin’s entertainment district already in place, SXSW was so much more convenient. The city of Austin has as much to do with the success of SXSW as the people who put it on and so the city should (and does) share in the profits.
But there seems to be this attitude of entitlement in Austin, as if personally benefiting from SXSW is a birthright, even for the 90% of Austin residents who were born somewhere else. You’ve never seen so many whiners, who hate SXSW because they were at a cool party last year that was shut down by the fire marshals because the permits weren’t in order. The clueless vitriol, under the cloak of fake names, has flowed dramatically on the Internet .
As always, Andy, SXSW brings out the best in people and the worst.
Here’s the truth as I know it. SXSW organizers act less out of greed, than of a genuine fear of losing what they’ve worked hard to build from the ground up. And the money is nice.
In the amped-up crush of SXSW, it sounds absolutely ridiculous to suggest it won’t be around for years to come. If SXSW organizers are visionaries, it’s because they can see a future not as rosy and when bellies are filled with free mojitos and ‘cue.
What can be done about all this? I really don’t know. It’s a free country. Also, you have to wonder if the international acts, which have really improved the personality of fest, will continue to fly from overseas enmasse without the opportunity to play six or seven daytime parties.
SXSW is too strong to not survive, right? Right? But a word of advice, Andy. I wouldn’t miss too many more.
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By Steve Basile
March 19, 2008 7:36 PM | Link to this
Well, we are a one bar sampling, but we’re entirely at odds with the guesstimate on business levels. We set sales records Wed, Thu, Fri & Sat this year. Saturday even beat Sat 3/17/07, which was St Patrick’s Day, traditionally pretty damn busy. We had free music parties every daytime too, 12-5pm and they were busier also. We made more, our staff made more, and our guests got more. We’ll gladly be a happy SXSW venue for 8 more years.