The world of SXSW: Hustle, hype and handshakes
From startups to established artists, Austin festival is still the place to be
AUSTIN — Vangelis Andrikopoulos and Zak Kempson landed here planning to sleep in their rental car.
The business partners from London showed up at South by Southwest to make connections and push their idea at the International Accelerator Pitch, a “Shark Tank”-like event where startups vie for approval from a panel of experts. Although their company, Rental Guru, an inventory system for bikerental firms, is based nearly 5,000 miles away, Andrikopoulos and Kempson just knew they had to be at SXSW.
“For us, coming to a festival like this, the opportunity to walk through here and meet all those people, is just too good to pass up,” said Kempson, 24.
They were just two of the more than 70,000 attendees from all over the globe swarming downtown Austin during the opening weekend of the nine-day-long SXSW Conference and Festivals, which ends Sunday.
What began as an intimate music gathering in 1987 has exploded into a
hydra-headed marketing monster. From the packed ballrooms at the Austin Convention Center — where hearing “Are you on LinkedIn?” is as common as “hello” — to clubs, theaters and hotels all over town, it’s a hyper hustler’s paradise that often feels like everyone’s trying to sell something.
Some are pushing ideas or startups, like Rental Guru. Others are trying to get the festivalgoers to sample their creative wares — be it filmmakers hoping their indie flicks can become festival buzz items or musicians peddling their music on the streets. And that’s without stepping foot inside the massive trade show that swallows up a large part of the convention center’s first floor.
“It’s been amazing, all the people we’ve met,” Andrikopoulos, 27, said. “I was thinking, ‘All right, now we’re going to Texas, I don’t know how receptive they will be.’ But I was completely wrong.”
Music syncing with tech
Michelle Miears can relate to the feeling of needing to be here.
The Houston singer-songwriter sees SXSW as a way to get her music in front of people in a much more aggressive way than she can at home.
“Four or five months before March, I’m always starting to think, ‘What can I start looking at for South By?’,” said Miears, who played two shows over the weekend, returned to H-Town and plans to drive back to Austin for two shows on Thursday.
“I talked to one artist, an Austin-based artist, who says he has 22 shows this week,” she said.
SXSW not only puts her in front of music fans and music-industry professionals, but she’s also exposing herself to people who might never have stumbled across her work previously — the benefits of the walls collapsing between music, interactive and film. For instance, some of the events she’s playing are sponsored by tech companies.
“It’s been cool to see these interactive shows and how the companies that sponsor these events are involving more and more music in these events,” she said. “They’re kind of mixing music with technology or whatever product their selling. I’m looking around and seeing all these cool demos, and I’m seeing amazing artists.”
While the film side of SXSW feels less frenetic than tech and music — in introducing his film, “Sorry to Bother You,” on Sunday, director and musician Boots Riley joked that the film events were a little less drunk — the goals are similar.
Like Andrikopoulos and Kempson, South African director Nosipho Dusima wasn’t quite sure what to expect.
Certainly, SXSW gets a lot of attention for the major new movies it showcases — including this year’s premieres of Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One”; Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs,” which screens Saturday night; or the opening-night party for Austin director Robert Rodriguez’s upcoming “Alita: Battle Angel.”
But Dusima, whose debut feature, the Cape Town-set thriller “Number 37,” had its world premiere at SXSW Saturday night, is part of a much larger wave of cinematic unknowns looking for the next leg up in their cinematic careers.
“I’ve really respected this festival for a long time,” she said. “We knew we wanted to get (‘Number 37’) into a festival that respected genre films. … SXSW is the perfect festival for that, so I was excited to submit it. Now that we’re here, it’s affirmation that we’re headed in the right direction.”
‘Like the best event’
Dallas-based director Augustine Frizzell didn’t have as far to travel as Dusima. And her debut feature, “Never Goin’ Back,” had already made noise at the Sundance Film Festival and was picked up by A24 (“Moonlight,” “Lady Bird”) for distribution prior to playing Austin. But she was just as determined that her movie play SXSW.
“Sundance felt like this pipe dream and, yes, if we got in, it would be amazing,” Frizzell said. “But South By has been the place that has accepted my (short) films and showed me support and found my audience. Being here means everything to me. … I would have been devastated if I hadn’t gotten in.”
Iconic Austinite and rebel filmmaker Rodriguez concedes that the downsides of SXSW — the traffic, the crowds — are real, but that the pluses continue to outweigh the negatives.
“When you’re a filmmaker, it’s like the best event. People come from all over to be here. People I wouldn’t normally see unless I’m in L.A., they’re coming here,” he said.
“(But) whenever it’s done, I always see the cover of the Austin Chronicle saying, ‘Maybe we should move this out of town.’
“It’s very disruptive to the city, but at the same time, it’s very good,” Rodriguez says. “It’s put us on the map in a big way.”
As for the guys from Rental Guru, they didn’t win with their pitch, but they’re not sorry they came.
“We felt that we did our best in terms of presenting. Everyone was super friendly. They were asking the right questions to help us think how to make it better,” Andrikopoulos said, adding they plan to visit area bike retailers before heading to San Antonio for some down time and then return to the U.K.
“We didn’t win, unfortunately. To be fair, some of the people (who won) were making breastcancer detection systems; maybe we shouldn’t win.”
Well, at least they won at something — not having to sleep in their sedan. An acquaintance finally let them couchsurf at his place. Though, Andrikopoulos said, “We were mentally prepared.”
Sounds like a SXSW motto.