Is SXSW Interactive Worth It?

Now that I’m back in the real world post-SXSW Interactive, just about everyone I talk to wants to know how it was.

The word I find myself using over and over is “overwhelming”. SXSWi was in fact entirely too large. The sense of “community” was lost in the masses of random people. There was little opportunity for serendipitous running-into-one-another of people you’d want to meet. Although yes, that did happen on occasion, for the most part if I wanted to meet someone I had to make a concerted effort—and even then most of the time it didn’t happen. Lots of, “Oh… I just missed you!”

Example.

I saw someone tweet a few days prior that she would be speaking at a specific location on Monday at 1:30pm CT about a topic I’m really interested in: location-based services at events. I’d been following her on twitter for a while and thought the topic would be interesting so I put the event on my calendar to be there so that I could introduce myself and hopefully have a quick conversation about events. Monday rolled around and as I was finishing brunch with my sister around 1pm I got the reminder on my iPhone. I looked up the location on a map and noticed that it would be a good 10-15 minute walk to a part of Austin I hadn’t ventured into yet. No problem, the weather was nice and I had company to walk with me. I arrived at the venue and a man at the door checked to see that I was on the RSVP list so that he could give me a separate pass to go inside. Luckily he gave me a +1 so that my sister could get inside as well. We walk upstairs, unsure of what to expect, and find only a few people casually chatting, not phased at all by our entrance for the most part. We stand around for a little bit until I can break into a conversation to say who I was looking for because I heard she would be here at 1:30pm. That’s when they tell me that they had a complication and moved the talk to 12:30pm, so she had already come and gone. And… so we left.

There were just too many things going on at any given time between official sessions, unofficial meetups, block parties, free food, lunch breaks, coffee breaks, scavenger hunts, sleep, and a million other things I didn’t even know about.

I hosted a joint unofficial meetup at a nearby bar for Brazen Careerist & 20-something bloggers members in Austin that weekend with more than 50 people registered to attend. Guess how many showed up? Maybe 5. Some of those even helping to organize the meetup didn’t even show up. I can’t necessarily blame them, though. With RSVPs to so many different events I was impressed with anyone who was organized enough or could remember where to be at which times. Not only that, but any meetup or party without free alcohol or food was essentially doomed considering you could find both flowing freely at all hours of the day and night.

The biggest lesson I learned at SXSW is that everyone is flaky. RSVPs mean nothing (that is, everyone RSVPs to everything, so obviously they’re missing 75% of that which they RSVPed to). Expect plans to be canceled. If you’re planning to meet up with someone, you better double and triple confirm with them, and then don’t be surprised (or offended) if those plans change at the last minute.

Of course there were some really fantastic moments at SXSWi. Spine-chilling sessions. Bonding with new friends. Seeing celebrities. Discovering new brands and iPhone apps. Witnessing some amazing parties & events first-hand. Being inspired by the city of Austin and falling in love with it.

But, the million-dollar question: Would I buy a badge and come back to SXSW Interactive next year? Probably not. If I do go back to SXSW next year I would probably just go for the unofficial events, marketing ideas, and randomness. I would have no expectations. I would take more notes (with a pen or camera). I would sleep more.