The genius behind South by Southwest

Prepare your ears. The artist lineup has finally arrived for the 2008 South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival happening right here in Austin, Texas March 12-16. R.E.M., My Morning Jacket, Dolly Parton, Billy Bragg and many others are coming here to entertain you and thousands of others. If you are like me, you might be taking the next step to find out when and where you can buy a wristband for the festival. But aside from the music and the flashing lights, why is SXSW so successful? Thousands of music lovers flock to see a few bands they have heard of and probably a hundred more they have not in a town where commerce does not get close to rivaling that of Dallas or Houston’s. So why is it? It is because music is awesome and South by Southwest is a public relations super star. Underneath the rock-filled headliners lays an inherent human quality that public relations practitioners exploit during an event such as this: straight up curiosity. What a brilliant concept! If you are a music lover there is nothing better than the excitement, hype and mystery before a new show. South by Southwest does this best. Through out the year, all participating bands’ publicists and managers are doing everything they can to get the exposure they need to break it big. In addition, event sponsors such as, Miller Lite, Sonicbids, Dell, Fuze, Citi Bank and many more spend ungodly amounts of money hyping the event so that bloggers like me will write about them, making their sponsorships pay off. The summation of these two factors equals a must see music extravaganza that you must attend in order to keep your music lovers’ union card. So what the hell? Bring on the hype, bring on the advertisements, but most all, bring on the music.