AWESOMECON

South By South West (SXSW) is the annual interactive/film/music conference & festival held in Austin, Texas.  This year is the 22nd annual conference and it will be Niki and my 4th year in a row.  To say SXSW is awesome is an understatement.  Its has been one of the best and most amazing music experiences I have ever had, and each year gets better.  As my friend Cyrus said: “Its like the Disneyland of music. You can see a year’s worth of shows in four days”.  And he was dead-on.

One of the challenges of SXSW is preparing for it.  With 1500+ bands playing at 70+ venues over four days and nights you have to have a gameplan.  Who are you going to see?  When are they playing?  What day shows should we hit?  Can we get in for the show?  You have to ask youself all of this to achive the best SXSW musical experience.

SXSW posts a band list, which is daunting in itself, to help you find out who is playing this year.  Seeing that many names on one page, its really easy to lose your place and everytime you re-read it you see bands you missed last time.  Luckily, some people over at Sun are hosting a SXSW Artist Catalog with band notes, pics, links and a tag cloud.  Its a great tool and really helps you see who is attending. Expect to see more on the blog about SXSW over the next month as the March 13th kick-off is rapidly approaching!

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