I bought my JetBlue tickets to Austin and registered for SXSW tonight. I'll be in Austin from Saturday March 11th to Wednesday March 15th. I'm trying to convince NTodd to go with me and he hasn't totally ruled it out, but he has to check his schedule and stuff. As the time draws near I'll post the specific events I'm planning on attending (gotta play to the cyber stalkers out there).
I didn't realize the music festival was so much bigger than the film festival. I've always known about SXSW as a film festival first (I guess because I'm a filmmaker) but it's clear from reading the materials that the music thing is just huge. Former BTV denizen and dreamy indy rock star Arthur will be performing at this year's festival, though I'll almost certainly miss the show because the day I leave is the first day of the music festival. Hopefully he'll be there early enough for us to hang out a bit.
Candleblog pal Neil Cleary has been to SXSW several times and used to live in Austin and he's given me some starter tips--the "hipster basics"--on enjoying the city. I've started to make pushpin notes on Google Earth of all of the relevant stuff--the hotel, the convention center, the state house, the good bars, the bridge where all of the bats live, etc.
The stars at night are big and bright...