The South by Southwest festival started as a pure music festival in 1987, added a film fest and a tech conference in '94, and has since become the biggest gatherings for hipsters, geeks and hipster/geeks in the world.
In recent years the music part of the festival, which traditionally starts after the tech part ends, has been overlapping the tech conference more and more. You can hear bands playing everywhere in Austin—in the bars, at parties and in the conference center—on almost all the days when tech nerds fill the streets in Austin.
Last week the festival began accepting submissions from bands who want to be invited to perform (for at the 2014 event next March. Has tech also influenced the way the organizers of SXSW choose which up-and-coming bands will be showcased next year? Have things like YouTube, Facebook and Soundcloud changed the selection process?
The music festival and tech conference have become increasingly intertwined at SXSW.
The person who knows best is SXSW Music general manager James Minor, who leads a staff of bookers who've become known for searching out artists who often end up breaking big after their appearance in Austin (see Nora Jones, The White Stripes and The Strokes).
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