I’m currently in Austin, Texas attending SxSW interactive. I am not attending the music festival that follows next week, BUT… today I had a very cool cab driver who told me all about it. (He’s playing in a band himself!)
There are like 250,000 people attending. And the festival is only on the evenings from 8pm to laaate. Plus, it’s only for indie bands.
So what happens with a quarter million people all day long?
Well… the majors would throw parties in giant warehouses and would fly in some of their major artists… Basically the unofficial festival ends up bigger than the official SxSW music. Pretty wild eh?
But it gets better: now some bands think it’s even cooler to play unofficial, because it makes it “indier” than the official.
Anyways, kudos to the Austin cab drivers. On average they are the coolest I’ve ridden with! :P