What Has SXSW Become? Lil Wayne, Emerging Artists And Big Brands Describe The Puzzling State Of It

The Texas dust has settled on the ever-growing South by Southwest — dust kicked up by a stampede of musicians, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, brands and even Barack Obama and his presidential motorcade. But while the festival and conference continues to expand and bring in more money (SXSW’s economic impact on the city’s economy skyrocketed from $190.3 million in 2012 to $317.2 million in 2015), the evolving magnitude of the multi-day event has befuddled the general public. What exactly is SXSW today, nearly 30 years after it launched in 1987? This year alone, between keynote sessions where Barack Obama stressed technology’s vital role in America’s security and where five days later First lady Michelle Obama rallied an all-star lineup of singers to create a charity single to benefit the White House’s Let Girls Learn campaign, Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz headlined Samsung’s Galaxy Life Fest as rap duo ColleGrove during the SXSW Interactive portion of the 10-day festivities. The array is plenty to process for attendees, let alone people at home who are hearing only bits and pieces here and there.
“I’ve been doing SXSW forever — for me it’s almost procedural-like so I know exactly what it is, but for everyone else trying to explain it exactly right is kind of a difficult thing,” Lil Wayne, a current spot holder on Forbes’ 20 Highest-Paid Hip-Hop Artists list with $15 million in 2015, tolds SOUL WORLD  backstage after his set. “When people ask, ‘Can I come with you, can I come with you?’ I have to explain to them it’s the tech week, not the music week. Overall, it’s a beautiful thing. I’m always involved in it. It’s always dope.”
That tech portion, added to SXSW as its own multimedia conference in 1995 before being renamed SXSW Interactive in 1999, helped the rise of Twitter TWTR -5.04% in 2007 and Foursquare 2009. The hot apps in 2016 were already established apps Snapchat, Uber and Lyft — and to a lesser yet still buzzy extent KnowMe, a J.J. Abrams-backed content creation app that merges footage, photos and audio into one shareable video. Virtual reality dominated the conversations during panels at the Austin Convention Center. But Doppler Labs’ Here Active Listening wireless earbuds, at least for this reporter who was near deafening stage speakers every day, was the most game-changing tech. The Kickstarter-backed “HereBuds” lets users customize their listening experience by using the accompanying phone app to adjust the levels of the sounds such as lowering the bass, amplifying the vocals or drowning out excess crowd noise. Here Active Listening ended SXSW winning Best of Show at the SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards.
The tech innovations seeped into the music portion of the festival, too, with Bud Light teaming up with Novalia and MediaCom to build several interactive music walls that turned attendees into DJs. The wall’s touch sensors allowed people to create remixes of existing songs such as X Ambassador’s “Unsteady” (watch below) at the Bud Light Factory, a two-story pop-up venue built inside Brazos Hall that hosted six showcases and 33 performances for more than 10,000 attendees over the course of four days.

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“We’re trying to bring some new experiences to consumers,” Alex Lambrecht, vice president of Bud Light, told Forbes. “What excites us most about SXSW is that there’s something for everybody, and that’s what we stand for as a brand. We like the authenticity. Everybody here has their own ambitions, their own preferences. We just want to be here and be cool as a brand. Just show up the way we are and bring some unexpected musical experiences to people [like The Roots jam session] and do an awesome design collaboration to announce our new visual identity with an Austin-based designer. It feels like a great blend for us. Texas is our No. 1 state for the brand [as far as sales], and music is a passion point for our consumers.”
While most Austin venues hosted new artists, bigger brands rented out expensive venues to blend high-profile headliners with lineups filled with emerging acts and bands. To name a few: Bud Light had The Roots, Bleachers, Big Grams, MisterWives and Ashanti. Spotify had Miguel, Kacey Musgraves, St. Lucia, CHVRCHES and The Kills. Samsung had Sia, Public Enemy, The Strokes, The Arcs and Elle King. MTV had The Chainsmokers, Travi$ Scott, A$AP Ferg, BØRNS and Lukas Graham. YouTube had Future, Santigold, Troye Sivan, Kehlani and Jamie XX. StubHub had X Ambassadors, Miike Snow, Gallant, Tanlines and Lower Dens. Converse and Fader had Drake, Rae Sremmurd, Tory Lanez, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nations and Yo Gotti. And JW Marriott had Ryan Adams, The Avett Brothers, DNCE, Mayer Hawthorne, and Strumbellas.
“With new artists and startups launching their work to a highly engaged audience, SXSW also offers a platform for more established brands like Marriott to share their unique perspective,” Jennifer Utz, vice president of buzz marketing and partnerships at Marriott International, told Forbes. “This year, we leveraged our partnership with Universal Music Group to offer an incredible lineup of performances by established and emerging artists at the JW Marriott Austin. Our goal was to create memorable and enriching experiences for festival attendees and Marriott Rewards members, and SXSW provided the perfect opportunity to do just that.”
Forbes also asked three bands to describe SXSW:
Transviolet: “SXSW is really spread out. It’s this big mish-mash of all kinds of performers at like the beginning of their career to until like they’re huge celebrities,” singer Sarah McTaggart said. “It’s literally like thousands of bands performing over like hundreds of venues. It’s pretty crazy. All of the streets are shut down and you have bands like us rushing around with gear in hand walking miles to get to the next venue. It’s so much fun.” Full interview, below.

Bob Moses: “SXSW is musical and cultural ADD but the best concentrated version of that. It’s like you can have a trap act and then an indie band and then an acoustic guitar guy and then the most hardcore dubstep you’ve ever heard,” said Jimmy Vallance, one half of the deep house duo. “People come and they’re just so stoked to be there. You get to see way awesome acts play at way smaller-sized venues than they normally would.” Full interview, below.

MisterWives: “I think [SXSW] is a really cool hub of so many different genres. You virtually have every kind of music here,” singer Mandy Lee said. “Festivals sometimes don’t have that. We play a lot of major festivals that are kind of similar vibe and it gets a bit monotonous to be honest, so it’s really cool to come to a place like Austin where people are wild and free naturally and then to throw every different genre of music into the mix just makes it a really unique experience.” Full interview, below.

SXSW is evolving, but music will always remain at its core even though the festival wore many hats this year.
“SXSW is an intersection of creativity, innovation and discovery through the lens of music, film and tech — and what we find is that it continues to evolve along with the consumer,” Utz emphasized.