One of the unsung heroes of SXSW for me is friend of The Baby! Kevin McStravick. Operation Every Band is a fantastic site, and of course helps to create the long list we use to make the SXSW Baby! Sampler. So I’m glad to see people picking up on Kevin’s work. Here’s the Houston Press on the ‘why?’ his mad idea:

I’ve always been the “music guy” amongst my circle of friends and wanted to find a way to spread my wings a bit. I discovered SXSW my first year in Texas in 2009, but was completely overwhelmed and ended just bouncing around catching random bands. It was wonderful, but I learned that coming in with a plan helped. The next year, I took the task of building my own spreadsheet of ratings to catch the best of the best and plan out what showcases I wanted to hit up.

Telling folks “I listened to all of them” yielded some dropped jaws and I knew I was onto something. Leading up to last year’s SXSW, I made my first Tumblr account and just started writing. A year later, I feel like I have a second full-time job!

Read the full interview here.

Why would someone help out at an unofficial blog for an event like SXSW? As the current babysitter of this here site, I’ve taken a stab at answering this on my own blog (www.ewanspence.com), and it makes sense to cross post it here.

(more…)

Naturally there’s a lot of people writing on their blogs, Facebook pages, and anywhere they can get people to upvote their submission on the Panel Picker. I’m not going to single out any site here, so some paraphrasing is going on here. But the pitch generally goes like this:

We’ve always looked at SXSW from afar. We’ve always wanted to go, and now we think that this proposal is so cutting edge and zeitgeist-y that you need to vote for it so we can get to Austin in March, because we really want to go! Please, please, please make it happen for us this year?

Just stop it. It’s not pretty, it’s not becoming, it’s embarrassing, and more importantly, it’s wrong.

It’s wrong because anyone who’s read the small print knows that getting a panel acceptance gives you an Interactive pass, and nothing else. The flights down to Austin and back again? You’ll need to buy them. It’s wrong because you’ll still need to pay the biggest expense of SXSW, the hotel room in Austin. It’s wrong because you’ll spend the best part of a week in the Texan capital and you’ll be eating out for all your meals… another expense that you’ll be covering.

So you’ve got all that budgeted. And you’re telling the world that you can’t add another $100 a month until March for the Interactive badge? $600 is a deal breaker? $600 out of a potential $2,000 for the badge, flights, hotel and spending? If SXSW is that important to you, if it is so important, then get yourself here and let it make a difference to you. If the opportunities presented are  worth $1400 but not $2000, perhaps SXSW isn’t for you?

And if you get to present a panel, then consider it a gift from yourself to the rest of those attending.