Mike Propst

Once again, a thousand bajillion people descended upon our fair city for SXSW. This time, they all bought an iPad 2. Not sure what dark magic Apple used to create that downtown popup store, but there’s no way it wasn’t worth it for them.

The Good

• Jared Spool, as always. The man’s talks are so chock-full of facts, numbers, and easy ways to justify design decisions to people who think you’re just the guy who knows [Photoshop/Graffle/Visio/napkins/whatever]. He’s consistently the best design-related talk, so much so that it’s to the point that I’d rather go to the Spool By Spoolwest conference.
• NASA. While their panel was basically an ad for the Jet Propulsion Labratory’s earth and solar system mapping programs on the web (really cool stuff) along with a brief talk about their DIY promotional/social media strategy, it was a fascinating look at how if you really engage people, you can make stuff happen. The social media d-bags need to take note. The mind-blowing detail was the revelation that space fans around the world could actually look at pictures dumped on the web by satellites and space probes before the scientists did. Wow.
• Comedy. Despite Donald Glover being so late coming on we never actually saw him, there were some great comedians both local and out-of-town showcasing at Esther’s Follies. It made for a nice break from constant loud music.

The Bad

• The aforementioned social media d-bags. The interactive conference raised prices bigtime this year — the story was something about curbing attendance, but why not just limit it? This had the unfortunate effect of keeping out the really interesting people. Entepreneurs, nerds, design gurus, they all stayed home while the agency folks and (far worse) the guys who try to sell them a Twitter strategy took over. Networking potential went way downhill, panel quality suffered as more and more became commercials.
• The spread. At one point Christoph and I walked to the Sheraton on 11th St. to see a talk, only to find that it sucked, and we were unable to make it back in time to see something else. That’s a drag, and I heard that story a lot with the panels expanded to 4 hotels including the Hyatt on South Congress.
• Just plain bad presentations. The vetting process is still not good enough at Interactive after 5 years. If you’ve ever been lured into a panel with a great name or description only to find that it’s either a guy misrepresenting a commercial or someone who is unable to codify their data into something that you can actually use, you know what I’m talking about.
• Under-trained/overzealous festival and venue staff. I get it, you don’t want Yoko Ono to be hassled and Elysium is way too small, but keeping the entire place from using the bathrooms for 20 minutes is a Bad Idea.

The Ugly.

• Ben Weasel. Here’s a uniquely insightful YouTube comment: “People paid money to see a whiny ass 43 year old man who was in a fairly generic punk band that peaked in the early 90’s complain about not being paid enough and nerd rage attack two women [Mike’s note: one was the venue owner, trying to break it up]. Not to mention his performance as a musician was terrible. This will probably bring him more attention than his entire music career combined. Douches all around.” Delicious irony: his ultra punk rock $25,000-guarantee show in San Antonio was canceled.
• Mike Watt’s show. A guy known for treating touring like a job, who knows how to do it right — how did he manage to schedule his show during SXSW? With no venues open, he was shoved into Ginger Man, which couldn’t come close to holding a [Mike Watt plus SXSW equals ridiculous] crowd. And I listened for a few minutes over the fence, but oh well.
• Riots. Odd Future might have tried to start one, but Death From Above 1979’s reunion show (are you allowed to do reunions after only 5 years now? Stupid internet has ruined all timelines) brought a torn down fence, cops on horses with tasers, and a whole lot of injured idiots.
• OMD’s luck. Their first night, the plug was pulled. The second night, at Stubb’s, a camera rig fell and severely injured a few people who were carried out on backboards. They did manage to get through some hits with sufficient energy and promised to come back to town for real, but what a bum time for them. Word from my friend who was standing right there is that the folks who were hit are hurt but ok, the backboards were a precaution.

The Verdict.

It’s too big. Simple. The convention center can’t hold the Interactive conference, and the city can’t hold the music festival. I don’t know if it’s greed or what — but Yoko Ono at Elysium is crazy and Death From Above 1979 at the Beauty Bar is asking for trouble. If there is a nexus for the festival, it’s probably 6th and Red River, and 6th is known for violence on a regular weekend — let alone when the population of the town has exponentially shot up. Not sure how to remedy this, after 25 years it’s hard to say. Interactive is a much more sad state of affairs despite the actual problems being less severe: After only 5 years, we should still be in the heyday but there’s plenty of doomsaying already.