My experience at SXSW 2022: expect the unexpected
Ten days ago, I revealed to you that I was going to Austin, Texas to attend the SXSW, one of the most important events about creativity and technology in the USA. Today, while I’m packing my stuff up to go back to Italy, I want to tell you a few words about my experience there, and if I think it has been worth going.
Going SXSW
Even if it is not so famous in Europe, the SXSW (South by SouthWest) has always been one of the events to be in the United States. It gathers people from the tech industry, from movies, from music, all in the same place for 10 days. The event hasn’t been held physically for 2 years because of the coronavirus, and it is finally back in Austin Texas just now. For the past two years, it featured a virtual world made in VRChat by us of VRrOOm, and this year, the virtual world was still there in parallel with the physical one. As I liked to say when talking about it, the real event is cool, but in the virtual one, you could finally be on a flying car… that is exactly what 30 years ago everyone was expecting from 2022.
Since we’re partners with SXSW and the event was one of the first ones to be held physically again, the VRrOOm team decided to let me and the COO Maud Clavier go there to do some networking. I was not so sure I wanted to go, because from Italy to Austin is a long trip, but I decided to try this new adventure… and well, I’m more than happy of having done that. Let me explain to you why I loved it so much.
The best things about SXSW
I loved going to SXSW and I think there’s something unique about this event. Let me explain to you why.
There are many visitors
SXSW is a famous event and it attracts many people from all over the USA, and also abroad. This is amazing if you are attending the event to do some networking because it means that you have a high chance to meet interesting people from your business or your career. I have been told that this year there were fewer visitors than the pre-covid editions, but I can assure you that even in these conditions, there were thousands of people in Austin for the event.
There are the most important companies
At SXSW there are relevant personalities from the tech industry, plus people from most of the major tech companies. During the event, I was able to see (in streaming) Mark Zuckerberg live for the first time. There was a keynote by Neal Stephenson. I’ve personally met and had a chat with people from Unity and Epic Games, Roblox, The Sandbox, HTC Vive, Microsoft, Rec Room. I saw that there were people from Sony Interactive Entertainment. There was Philip Rosedale (but I couldn’t find a moment to meet with him). I met some very well-known people in our industry, like Charlie Fink, Dean Takashi, Tony Parisi, Lucas Rizzotto, Joanna Popper, Tom Emrich, Kent Bye, Celine Tricart.
It’s a great place to be to meet important people and have meaningful meetings with them. For me, it has been amazing for two reasons: first of all, I had meetings with people I didn’t know from important companies and talked about collaborations; and then, I was able to meet again some friends of the industry and have fun with them, creating an even stronger bond.
There are people from various industries
One of the key features of SXSW is that it is not an event about a single technology: GDC is about gaming, AWE is about XR, Cannes is about the movie industry. SXSW is about technology, music, and films… like whatever. You can meet people from music studios, you can meet the guy from the tech startup, you can meet the crypto expert, you can meet the storyteller, you can meet the investor. Everyone is there. And if you live at the intersection of creativity and technology (like us that organize virtual reality events and concerts), it is the place to be.
This special mix of people is something I’ve been repeated a thousand times while I was at SXSW, and I can say that it is true. It was great for me to meet people from various communities I am in, like the guys and girls at Miroshot that organize amazing concerts in mixed reality, or the great Samurai Lawyer, which supports XR companies, especially VR fitness ones, with his passion and his knowledge.
The Energy
Exactly as I described for AWE, also SXSW is an event where you can smell high energy in the air. Everyone wants to meet new people, everyone wants to have fun, everyone wants the best for his/her day. The result is that you hug people you know, many people invite you to have lunch or some party together, meeting new people is easy as going “Hey, nice to meet you, I’m Tony. What takes you to SXSW?” while at a buffet. In my days at the event, I could see everyone smiling, everyone happy, everyone ready to try new experiences.
I’ve exchanged an insane amount of business cards. There are many events (buffets, parties, reunions, gatherings, lobbies) and going there it is very easy to meet new people. But you can also just meet someone that you know, and he introduces you to his friends and then you connect with new people. Or you start talking to someone in the line while you wait to try some XR experience and you start getting a lot from there. Everyone just wants to meet everyone, so the effort to speak with new people is minimal.
You can feel the energy in the air while you are there: that’s why it is not only useful to be there, but it is also a lot of fun: people are joking, smiling and having a great time and it is so beautiful to hang out around.
The official and unofficial initiatives
There’s a lot to do at SXSW. The event itself has conferences, keynotes, panels. There are big showcases of creative productions (e.g. XR movies) and startups. Then there are some officially organized parties, concerts, and meetings. There is so much happening at the same time, that by checking the agenda you will have to make choices.
But what is unofficially organized is also huge: some startups rent some places nearby the convention center to have big showcases of their products. There are many concerts. There are exhibitions. There are parties and dinners organized by communities and people that attend the event. There is a full vibrant ecosystem that organizes many initiatives.
Not to mention that since it’s so easy to do networking, you will also set up various meetings during your stay in Austin… so the agenda between all those things, becomes full very fast. And again, it is impossible to do everything: you would need a month to enjoy everything at SXSW… but since the event is just for 10 days, you will be required to make some choices of where you want to be every time. For instance, I missed the keynote by Neal Stephenson because I had an important meeting set at the same time. I’m so sad about it, I wanted to learn how to be a Chief Futurist Wizard…
And don’t limit yourself to the real world: during the event, I held a panel about fitness and VR with a few amazing community members in the virtual reality version of SXSW! And let me tell you that since the big energy of SXSW was perceivable also in VR, it has been one of the best panels I have ever had in my life! Full of useful information, with us on the stage having fun while doing it, and with a lot of engagement from the virtual audience. I loved it.
The Free Merch
If you like getting free T-shirts, free drinks, free food, well, you are in a good place. I’m getting home with like 3 T-shirts, two hats, two cheap sunglasses, some snacks I got around (e.g. some M&M’s branded by Norton), a Moleskine agenda. I feel like having robbed a shop.
The magic of the unexpected
All of the features described above lead to what for me is the real magic of SXSW: the unexpected. You wake up in the morning knowing the first things that you will do (e.g. the first meetings and conferences you have put on your agenda), but you never know how your day will end. I think the spirit of SXSW is well summarized by what has happened yesterday, the last day we have spent in Texas. Maud Clavier and I wanted to finish our stay by going to a Tex Mex restaurant, so we looked on Google Maps, found what looked like a good place, and called a Lyft to get there. When the car arrives, the driver turned out to be a Mexican woman that hearing that we wanted to hear some good Mex food decided to bring us to a completely different part of the city to a place she knew was great. And so we found ourselves in an unknown place, eating the best Tex Mex food I have eaten in my two trips to the US. This is exactly how every day is at SXSW: totally random, but definitely awesome.
You meet so many people and there are so many initiatives to attend, that the possibilities of what you can do are so many… Doctor Strange could see millions of possibilities from there… and all of these things to do are powered by the energy of the event that makes people happy and willing to do crazy things. The result is an explosive mix. One day I started doing meetings, then I headed to a dinner organized by Charlie Fink and I found myself doing the rodeo on a mechanical bull.
Another day, a friend sent to me the info about the party from The Sandbox: before getting there, I got a free yellow Texan hat from a booth of a company that was dismantling its place, so I went to the party with a full suit, and a yellow Texan hat and sunglasses. I so found myself with the perfect look for a disco party, and people on the dancefloor stopped me because they wanted to have pictures with me… they thought I had studied my look, while it was just a mix of a business suit and some free merch got the same days from some sponsors.
Another day I found myself inside what used to be a Church watching a creepy artistic show, and a few minutes later, I was with an XR content creator in the streets singing “My heart will go on” while replicating the famous scene from Titanic. And after that, I met with someone from the famous studio Felix and Paul, and then I was able to ask Celine Tricart if it is true that she’s working on a VR game with Hideo Kojima as some people on the web are saying. Not to mention the day I was in line waiting to do a VR experience and HP’s Joanna Popper kidnapped me to bring me to her stand!
It’s crazy, it’s crazy. You plan parts of your day, but the other parts will be organized for you by the magic of SXSW. And this is something that has never happened to me: even when I attended AWE, for instance, I knew more or less what I was going to do every day. Here you will know something about your day, but something else will be an expected surprise. And you know what? It is the best thing ever about this crazy event.
The worst things about SXSW
I loved going to SXSW, but not to make this post look like a commercial, I think it’s fair to tell you also what I have not liked about it.
It’s an expensive trip
If you come from abroad, traveling to Austin is not going to be cheap, and also getting an Airbnb the days of the event is going to cost you a lot, because everyone is looking for a house. The Platinum Badge of the event, which I have been given for free because I was a speaker, cost $1600. To go to the venue, you most probably have to take a Lyft every day, and this is money that adds up pretty quickly.
Going to SXSW is an important investment of money.
It’s a time investment
If you come here, be prepared that the days of the event will be full. Coming to SXSW is a big-time investment you make to create meaningful connections with the tech community, and of course, you have to subtract that time to the other activities you usually do during your days: for instance these ten days I have almost disappeared from social media, and I have developed very few things. I have customers that want to speak with me and I’m delaying all my meetings until I come back. Prepare to invest your time in this event.
It’s tiresome
You wake up, you go to conferences, then networking dinners, then networking parties. During the day for sure you have to do some business (e.g. checking the e-mails). Rinse and repeat for all the days of your stay, and I can assure you that after a few days you start feeling pretty tired. I am here writing this post after having slept like 4 hours, with 200 e-mails still unread on my inbox, telling myself I have not the age to do this anymore.
I mean, it’s worth it, but prepare yourself for a marathon.
Some talks are not as good as you hope for
The panels and the keynotes host always interesting people, but not always the result is as good as you hope for. I mean, I have been to some panels where people were just bragging about themselves and promoting their business. And it is totally useless following panels like this, because they are just big commercials. This is part of every event, and SXSW is no exception to this.
The food
I’m Italian and Maud is French: we both come from countries that have a strong culinary culture. Coming here to SXSW, we’ve had a bit of cultural shock about the food: not to insult anyone, but we have been pretty disappointed by most places where we ate at. There is great food in Austin, and we have been taken to two amazing BBQ places and to that great Tex-Mex place I told you above, but if you don’t know where to eat, you risk going to pretty disappointing places. Not to mention the weird buffets offered by startups: to look classy, they offer you crazy shit like “fruit with peppers and fish” (no, seriously, I ate this during a crypto party) that should be forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. After two bites of this kind of stuff, I could already feel full, because my body was like “I’m enough, I prefer starving and dying that eat these things”.
The White Claw
No. I mean, no. I wonder why on Earth someone has invented the White Claw, a drink made of water, soda, alcohol, and unidentified substances that should taste like fruit and instead taste as if the fruit was a chemical waste. It was this year’s official sponsor of the event, so it was available for free everywhere. Being offered everywhere, I tried drinking it, but I found its chemical taste terrible. I hoped it was just that specific flavor, so I tried all of them, and I found them to be equally undrinkable. So please, SXSW, next year, find another sponsor, whatever you want, even the suppositories are fine, but not the White Claw. I need 6 months of therapy with a psychologist to forget the White Claw drinks.
Some pieces of advice if you want to attend SXSW
Maybe this section would require a separate article (and I could write it next year if you are interested), but just to give some hints on how to get the best from your SXSW:
- Plan going there in advance, so you can book your flight and stay in advance, when the prices are lower. Because the more you get close to the event, the more they skyrocket
- Organize yourself so that they days of the event you don’t have a lot of other work to do apart from attending the SXSW
- Understand what do you expect from this event, and organize yourself to make this happen: are you there for networking, for fun, to write blog articles, to get investments, etc…? Plan your days accordingly according to this. There are so many initiatives happening at the same time, that you have to be strategic in choosing where to go
- Use the portal of the event to look for interesting people to meet and interesting talks to enjoy. There is a search function by company and name that is quite effective
- Be careful that the first half of the event is more about tech and the second part more about music. Go away after the first days if you are not interested in the music business (or just enjoying music)
- Contact the people you want to meet with any means: from my experience, the chat of the event is used by very few people, so it is more effective getting in touch with them via Linkedin. Or another good idea is to go watching their speeches and then catch up with them as soon as they get down from the stage
- Reserve some time for the fun: going to parties is part of the SXSW experience, and you can’t miss it. Plus you will be surprised by how many people you meet there… having fun and have business meetings is mixed all together
- Don’t go there with a suit… no one will wear it. I mean, I’m Italian, I like to keep my style high abroad when I represent my country, but I really felt a weird animal considering that everyone was dressed so informally
- Create a network of people that can inform you about initiatives. As I’ve told you, the official SXSW program is great, but the unofficial initiatives are sometimes even better. The more people you know, the more you are informed about great things that are happening around you. Sometimes it’s enough to ask the people you meet “what are you up tonight?” and listen where they are going
- Have an open attitude. Don’t aim at a fixed schedule: as I have showed you, this is not how SXSW works. Plan ahead, but be ready for changes. Let the flow transport you, see where the magic of SXSW is going to lead you everyday. This is the best way to enjoy the event.
I hope to have communicated to you the vibes of SXSW well enough… I’ve loved being here and I’m a bit sad I’m having to take a plane! Thanks to everyone that helped me in making this experience memorable, and (hopefully) see you next year!
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