South by Southwest’s Formula for How to Keep Them Coming Back to Austin
Photo Credit: Indie, dance-pop band Rubblebucket performing at a recent SXSW festival. Wikimedia
Skift Take
Is it tough to keep it cool and relevant? You bet. But the South by Southwest festival in Austin has found some secrets to packing 'em in every year. SXSW is one of the subjects in Skift’s recent sixth anniversary book, For the Long Haul, Lessons on Business Longevity, whose chapters we are excerpting for you here in the coming weeks.
Jesse DeFlorio always booked his trips to South by Southwest the same way every year, by flying into Austin three days early and flying out of Austin three days late.
For seven years beginning in 2009, the Los Angeles-based music photographer took his talents to Austin, shooting photos of bands performing at the annual, internationally known music, film, and interactive festival. DeFlorio spent his time backstage at PureVolume House, and later, the Hype Hotel, pop-up music venues where up-and-coming artists played shows, and took portraits of all the musicians. South by Southwest was always a working trip for DeFlorio, but he always built in extra time to enjoy and explore the city.
“It’s the live music capital of the world,” he says. “I’ve been touring for 12 years, and I’ve never seen another city with that density of music venues that close to one another.” In other words, making time for arguably the creative capital of the United States was just as important as
