SxSW is a wolf in sheep's clothing – a "big player" conference disguised with invite-only parties and taco trucks designed to look like the place where all the hidden gems of tech and content meet.
Yeah, so…. to everyone sharing their +SXSW plans with me. I'm not going. I know South by Southwest appears to be for 'indie' interactive and tech companies, but it's not any longer. WE can't afford to attend, only big shops can flip the bill at this point because it's gotten so damn expensive.
Small content producers can't afford $5k to get there only to get lost in the crowd and attend conference panels of 7 people who talk about themselves for the entire 45 minutes. It was a great run while it lasted. Thanks for the memories….
If you are a large company courting other large companies (or at least ones with enough angel funding to fly their teams down for the week and feed them) then you will be in perfect company. It's a great opportunity in that situation. Don't be fooled into thinking that it's the place to be 'discovered', 'find funding' or 'get hired'. It's too big.
Just so you know why I won't be attending this year. I'll be working the grind.
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I'm assuming (hoping) there will be a new "hot" conference popping up soon for the smaller players! 🙂
How might we create the hot new conference ourselves?!
Saving this to show my supervisor the next time he asks why I so rarely request funds for "professional development" opportunities. Our small, academic/government program sets aside approximately $1k a year for prof. development for our entire five-person communication team. Even if I thought the big tech conferences were the right fit, the costs are entirely out of our league.
YEA I saw great concert's from the marketing side and bought some book's,but my hotel screwed me and SXSW did nothing to help me out either and had to stay in a cheap hotel over a partner hotel
+Pat Kight you bring up a good point. The way the world works today with business and technology, you HAVE to keep up and it moves fast. Employees that don't get out to get training will fall behind (and that means the company goes to pot with education too) if they don't take it upon themselves to keep in the loop. That alone is hard without guidance. Large companies can afford more training dollars per employee, but small shops can't. Sadly they are the ones that have more to loose by slipping behind.
With that said, SxSW is NOT the place to actually learn anything.
+Lynette Young guess what? I'm in the same boat as you.
+Lynette Young Nope, didn't expect it was, but I do consider networking to be a big component of prof. development; the people I really learn from are the ones I've met at conferences over the years. But honestly, even the training-oriented meetings are way outside our budget.
I'm local. I just go for the beers and the bands 🙂 It was great last year, getting to meet a lot of folks from G+. I can understand the expense issues, if I didn't live down the street I definitely could not and would not be attending.
Wow +Lynette Young You definitely summed up a ton! I won't be there either. I may drive up for a day. So weird to see so many who decided not to attend this year..
+Vic Gundotra You are not speaking or going at all?
G+ was still kind of fresh last year, not so fresh anymore. Perhaps that could explain some dropout among G+'ers.
I also know a lot of Bands around town that share your sentiment once they realize the bar they played last weekend wants to charge them 5 grand to play during SXSW. Most local bands can't afford that, the event is more focused around record labels and producers instead of artists who don't have a record label or producer yet. But it has always been that way, at least the music side of it has.
I'm not going to SXSW either. Let's meet up that week locally 🙂
Aw +Vic Gundotra if your not going because its too expensive…. But seriously, it is probably too big at this point for even a big company like Google to make connections, us small fish don't have a chance.
Local meetup that weekend!!!!
Yes +Lynette Young we should do a NY/NJ area meetup then 🙂
A North by NOwest. Deal!
There are always free shows. Last year I must have seen at least 15 free venues with awesome line ups. I paid at most $20 for a good 20 artists!
That's awesome math by the way lol
there always happy
I'll be there as you know. And our clients like Samsung, Pepsi and Oreo will too. While it may not be what it WAS it still serves as a remarkable collision of influence and information.
Oh SxSW is amazing, just not for the cost especially when you are a solo gig covering it out of pocket. It's also too big physically for one person to cover productively. I'd love to be able to go, it just doesn't make financial sense.
Wait. You have Oreo as a client?! My kids would trade me in for them and Lunchables…
This is a new tech startup conference that might be a rising star http://everywhereelse.co
ola lynette young tudo boa noite tudo bem