SXSW 2015 – Has It Jumped the Shark?

Grumble grumble grumble. That\’s what I heard from a number of people who used to attend South by Southwest, Austin\’s massive interactive, music and film festival.

\”It\’s not like it used to be.\”

\”It\’s so commercial now.\”

\”No one goes any more.\”

In 2014, I attended the event for the first time.

I was all set to attend in 2015 once more, but the nice people in charge of issuing press badges told me that I wasn\’t going to get one this year. Apparently, I didn\’t qualify because I didn\’t give them enough coverage last year.

Bogus. Totally bogus.

But that\’s life. It\’s not my job to tell them how to do their jobs.

So I wasn\’t going to attend in 2015.

However, my friend Martin Jones at Cox Business contacted me and asked if I would like to attend as a brand ambassador for Cox. Essentially, I\’d survey the landscape and interview key influencers at the event. The video would be used as content for CoxBlue.com.

So, with the bad juju of being rejected as media brushed off my back, off to Austin I went to discover if SXSW was really a thing of the past.

Here\’s the short version… It\’s not.

Now I\’m not saying SXSW hasn\’t turned into a massive commercial lovefest.

I\’m not saying that SXSW isn\’t full of itself.

And I\’m not saying that things haven\’t changed from the early days.

I\’m sure all those things are true to some degree.

The fact is that attendance hit an all-time high of nearly 85,000 people. That\’s a lot of people. And a whole lot of bad stench on 6th street.

But here\’s the thing. SXSW isn\’t about the event itself.

It\’s not about the sessions (which number way too many, and I didn\’t attend a single one. Who can sit still for it?)

It\’s not about the expo floor, which I thought was kind of weak this year.

And it\’s not about the arguments of what once was or what is.

It\’s about people. It\’s ALWAYS about people.

My experience at SXSW was packed with great experiences fueled by my friends and associates. I\’m grateful that SX provided the venue, but the real value came from those I spent time with.

People like Bryan Kramer, Ekaterina Walter, Ted Rubin, Brian Fanzo, Angus Nelson, Sarah Evans, Amber Armstrong, Eric Tung, Courtney Kramer, Martin Jones, Michelle Killebrew, Scott Monty and John Nosta, to name just a few.

With the Meerkat live streaming app in hand and professional filmmaker Eric Latek along to capture it all on video, I went from place to place capturing the sights and sounds of SXSW.

Here are a few photos from my exploits in Austin…

6th Street is always a sight to see. The smell.. oh, the smell!

Finally acquired my own Meerkat shirt, straight off the back of their community manager, Ryan P. Cooley!

The Paypal Social Lounge was a frequent hangout, with plenty of live interviews taking place. Daymond John, of Shark Tank fame, was on hand for one session.

I got to participate in a live #H2H Tweetchat with several of my friends. We streamed the entire thing on Meerkat and I topped 300 simultaneous viewers.

It\’s always a pleasure to see @PRSarahEvans. I gifted her a flying monkey.

Sprinklr had a great party and I got to hang out with their Global Evangelist, Ekaterina Walter.

Eric Latek is a talented filmmaker and he came equipped with the same camera that Peter Jackson used to film The Hobbit. Holy cow!

Love hanging out with Kramer and Fanzo. These guys understand that social is all about relationship.

I was asked to do a \”Pedicab Confession\” on my way to a filming of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Great fun!

After arriving on location, we took some memorable photos.

The Meerkat snuck into the show.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus was Jimmy\’s guest. She brought whiskey on stage and they got snookered while filming the show!

These were just some of the experiences I was privileged to enjoy at SXSW.

To those who say SXSW has jumped the shark, I say stop being a curmudgeon.

Wherever you find people coming together to build friendships, you\’ve got a good thing going on.

We filmed about 20 interviews with leading influencers while at the show. Here\’s one of them with my friend Bryan Kramer (with a special surprise appearance by Ted Rubin.)

You can see more interviews on the official CoxBlue.com site.