There are 0 days and 14 hours until South by Southwest 2010 begins!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
SXSW Tips: PSA on iPhone Sounds: Please turn them off!
Imagine a conference room full of people trying to listen to a panel with a quiet speaker. A touching story about life at Fray Cafe. A quiet acoustic performance in the back room of the Red Eyed Fly. And the person next to you is thumbing out an email and you can hear them typing every single character.
Please turn off any extraneous notification sounds and keyboard clicks, or you’ll drive everyone around you insane from hearing those little iPhone typing sounds or an SMS notification wind chime.
Pick Up Your Badge on Thursday, Pick Up Now on 1st Floor
Straight from South By Headquarters, badge pickup begins Thursday, March 11 at 3pm and runs until 10:00pm for those of you arriving in the evening. Badge pickup re-opens Friday, March 12, at 9am.
And, if you’ve been to SXSW before, note that badge pickup has now moved to the first floor of the Austin Convention Center. It is no longer up the escalators on the second floor. For easiest access, enter the ACC on Trinity St between 2nd St and 3rd St. rather than on 4th Street.
Austin weather in March? Fickle, fickle, fickle! Dress in layers.
Bring a light jacket or sweatshirt, because SXSW can get quite chilly at night, and the Convention Center is highly air conditioned as are the movie theatres! But many of the restaurants and bars have outdoor space.You’ll need to be prepared for multiple types of environments. Multiple t-shirts, tank tops, and a sweatshirt on top usually work well for me.
Austin spring is very unpredictable. It might be hot and humid the whole time you’re there, or it might be overcast and drizzling. Sometimes SXSW is gorgeous and warm, sometimes SXSW is plagued by chilly nights, and sometimes there are sudden thunderstorms!
Dress code tends towards the casual but hip (and painfully hip once SXSW Music starts). Pack accordingly.
Bring good ear plugs. They help you sleep in your room and on the plane. And you’ll need them at social events. Not just if you happen to be at a party with live music, but also because Sixth Street gets loud! If you’re staying downtown, you might find that the outside noise keeps you up at night. And who knows how good thick walls of your hotel room are?
I like to bring multiple pairs of foam earplugs, in case you lose one earplug or have a friend who is unprepared. They don’t take up space, so why not bring the entire box? This is especially important for the Music Festival.
(Get plenty of sleep before SXSW because you’re going to need it. I might also consider a sleep mask and one of those neck pillows.)
Don’t forget these simple tips to avoid getting sick during SXSW. Thousands of people will be in the downtown Austin area, and you’ll probably be shaking a lot of hands. So take care and good luck!
Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze, then dispose of the tissue in the trash.
If you don’t have a tissue, cough or sneeze into your upper sleeve or elbow, not your hands.
Wash your hands frequently with soap and water or use alcohol-based hand sanitizers, especially after you cough or sneeze.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth—these are all entry points for the influenza virus.
Get plenty of sleep, be physically active, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food. (This might be tough during SXSW, but every little bit counts.)
If it’s your first time at SXSW, here’s a handy video from the festival/conference organizers. And you may also find it useful to listen to the podcast of last year’s How to Rawk SXSW panel.
There are a number of great parties happening during SXSW and one of the aspects where party-organizers try to out-do one another is through not just an open bar, live music, and contests and prizes, but by offering food. And with each year, the party snacks get more and more interesting (although not always for free). Combine that with Austin’s thriving food truck scene, and you have some great combinations going on. From Pastries and Pasties to a Street Food Fest right outside the Convention Center doors, SXSW is for food lovers!
SXSW Tips: Bring Some Snacks and Reusable Water Bottle
If you’re traveling to Austin for SXSW, I highly recommend bring some snacks from home with you. I like bringing snacks that are portable, healthy, and non-perishable.
Don’t forget that SXSW is a blur of beer, BBQ, and tacos, so some fruit or veggies will be in order at some point. Otherwise you might find yourself burning out on a diet of coffee, breakfast tacos, Tex-Mex, BBQ, and alcohol. Many people forget to eat some fruit and vegetables.
Things you can bring include dried fruit, nuts, granola, trail mix, instant oatmeal (I like Kashi brand), apples, oranges, crackers, cereal bars, and granola bars, just in case. You probably shouldn’t eat only queso and brisket the entire time you’re there, and you’ll be pressed for time, often, which means bringing your own can really be a lifesaver. Plus, the food in the Convention Center’s tradeshow area...leaves something to be desired.
Bonus: if you have a room with a fridge (I think you can get them for a small fee at the Hilton) or kitchenette, visit the Whole Foods on Bowie and West 5th (via cab or Dillo) and pick up some healthy snacks and water. If you try to walk, budget enough time to get there as it’s about a mile away from the Convention Center.
And with all of this extra drinking going on, it’s especially important to drink water. Stay hydrated. You’re going to be drinking, talking, standing, walking, and more, with really long days ahead of you. I often request a cup of water with every drink I have. (Don’t forget to tip your waitstaff.)
Bring a reusable water bottle, which you can fill at your convenience. Even a small one will do if you don’t want to be overburdened with stuff. (A small bottle of ibuprofen is also handy for rough mornings, if you know what I mean.)
If you’re in need of medication or other medical items (like *cough* a hangover cure), there is a CVS located downtown, but the pharmacy does not stay open very late on weekends. Add this to your address book, in case you need it! Also note: It’s springtime in Austin, and that means allergies, thanks to ragweed.
Here’s the pharmacy info:
CVS
500 Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 478-1091
Store Hours
Mo-Fr: 08:00 AM - 10:00 PM
Sa: 08:00 AM - 10:00 PM
Su: 08:00 AM - 10:00 PM
Pharmacy Hours
Mo-Fr: 08:00 AM - 09:00 PM
Sa: 08:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Su: 10:00 AM - 05:00 PM
PS Now might be a good time to refill any prescriptions you need during the fest.
A guide for the car-less, created by the authors of sxswbaby.com. You’re hungry, you don’t have a car, and you have a short time to find some food in between commitments in downtown Austin. (Unlike some other interactive and web conferences, meals are not provided by conference organizers.)
So where to eat? I’ve pulled together a list of spots for your perusal. The focus here is listing mostly restaurants that:
are close to 6th Street, Red River, and the Convention Center
don’t require a car (cabs are unreliable and in extremely short supply during SXSW; if you even have a rental car, finding parking downtown can be a hassle; and even if you have a bike, your friends may not)
inexpensive and casual, or are of good value
fast-ish (to a relative degree)
not national chains like IHOP or PF Chang’s
Sidebar: I highly recommend eating at off hours. Eating during SXSW can make you crazy. By the time you figure out where your friends are, what they want to do, how sober they are, and gather up the troops to get lunch or dinner, you end up walking into a restaurant with a huge party and get quoted a wait time of 1-2 hours. Go as soon as the last panel ends, especially during SXSW Interactive. It doesn’t matter if you can’t gather everybody up. Just go!
Additionally, I’ve made a Google Map of all of these spots. I’ve also created a short URL for my map on bit.ly. Just enter in http://bit.ly/sxsweats. To access on your iPhone, simply add my map to your My Maps listing in Google, and then sign in from your iPhone on mymapsmobile.com. Or use the iPhone application My Maps to view. I’ve also added operating hours, when I could find them, but some eateries may extend operating hours during SXSW. When in doubt, call ahead. (Yelp/Citysearch/etc. lie. They can’t keep up with restauranteur’s complicated lives, so operating hours are often out of date).
Austin is a breakfast taco town: eggs, cheese, maybe some bacon or chorizo or potatoes, in a tortilla. Simple, fast, tasty, and cheap! You can eat it on the go. Hearty, and filling, I try to eat as many breakfast tacos as I can while I’m in Austin. But not all in one sitting, of course. The New York Times also recently published a piece on the mighty breakfast taco.
For quick and easy tacos near the Convention Center, there’s a Taco Shack located in the Frost building (402 Brazos, at 4th Street). It’s a fast food restaurant without table service, but it’s quite convenient. But they cater to the weekday breakfast and lunch crowds, so if you sleep in, you’ll miss out. Monday through Friday they’re open 6:30AM to 2:30PM, and on Saturday, they’re open 7AM to 1PM. And they are closed on Sundays.
Many coffee shops around town also get breakfast tacos delivered in the morning and keep them warm in a steam table for your enjoyment. I’ve definitely grabbed some breakfast tacos to go from the Hideout (617 Congress Avenue, at 7th). I’ve also read that they are available at Downtown Jo’s (242 West 2nd, between Colorado and Lavaca), Progress Coffee (500 San Marcos St at 5th), El Chilito Dos (918 Congress Ave, at 9th), and El Sol y La Luna (600 East 6th, at Red River). Unfortunately, one of my favorite breakfast taco joints downtown, Las Manitas, closed.
And if you have a fever for breakfast tacos in Austin, check out Taco Journalism’s list of the best breakfast tacos in town (will require a ride to get out of downtown Austin).
Wear the most comfortable shoes you own. Now is not the time to break in new shoes. Especially because the Austin Convention Center is nearly 900,000 square feet of space!
Expect a lot of walking, especially to get from one panel room to another. Budget a good 10-15 minutes to get from point A to point B.
Plus you will be standing, a lot, in long lines, waiting for a table at a restaurant, talking to new friends at parties, or taking in live music. Hours of standing on end, which you may not be accustomed to.
I typically purchase padded insoles, for shock absorption.
Bring multiple pairs of comfortable shoes, so you can air them out and alternate. (I really like DC brand sneakers because they have padding and are wider than most.)
Closed-toe shoes work better, because Sixth Street gets quite dirty after night after night of parties, and the bars are often really crowded.
Sometimes it rains, so don’t bring any shoes that bleed if they get wet. Leave those flimsy slippers and smelly flip-flops at home.
Before I arrive in Austin, I find it helpful to bookmark all of the relevent SXSW Mobile sites and install any SXSW mobile applications. Do this at home, before you find yourself somewhere where they charge for the wifi (airport, hotel) or there’s a potentially flaky connection (hotel, convention center, AT&T)! My recommendations:
The official schedule on my.sxsw.com, which now also has a mobile version. You’ll be able to add and remove events from your computer, and access them on the go using the mobile version. You should be automatically redirected when you visit on your mobile phone. There is also a free my.SXSW iPhone application that includes syncing of events as well as offline access of most features, except for Maps and Search. Having trouble? You may need to delete and reinstall the application.
Additionally, the unofficial scheduling site sched.org has launched a free SXSW 2010 version at sxsw2010.sched.org. It will format itself automatically when you visit on a mobile device. Additionally, they are offering an iPhone application very soon which includes syncing of events as well as full offline access.
Don’t forget your favorite location-based social networking application. Foursquare or Gowalla (these links are for iPhone apps) seem to be the weapons of choice this time around. And there are definitely special SXSW-only treats for users of both. Users of Gowalla can win VIP passes to the Gowalla Tiki Room during SXSWi, while users of Foursquare during SXSWm can win entry into SPIN’s invite-only party at Stubb’s BBQ.
And if you’re attending SXSW Music, you may also want to install the Levi’s Fader Fort application for iPhone/Android, built to support their unofficial SXSW parties. They also have an SMS updates service going on: text FORT to FADER (32337) to receive their updates.
And I’m sure you already have your favorite Twitter client installed, or m.twitter.com or mobile.twitter.com bookmarked.
Having trouble updating due to poor signal? Use your cell phone to send text messages to Twitter, instead. For US-based customers, send a text message to 40404.
sitby.us is a handy tool for Interactive attendees. Build or import a schedule, see what your Twitter friends are interested in attending, and during the actual conference, check in to panels and broadcast to your friends exactly where in the room you’re sitting. Rather than scanning the room looking for a familiar face, sitby.us hopes to connect you with other attendees in the same room. Save me a seat!
If you happen to drive somewhere during SXSW and need a designated driver to accompany you home, try out TipsyTaxiATX. They’ll send someone to drive you home, apparently!
The GetHuman iPhone application isn’t specifically about SXSW but it’s helpful to find airline customer service numbers if you happen to be traveling by air to Austin.
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