SXSW rocks

Still suffering from jetlag and an overload of cheese (Texas is not a vegetarian heaven) I thought I would scribble down some points about the Festival.

Dan Taylor sums up it up in nine words: “Wi-Fi, Queue, MacBook, Shiner Bock, Twitter, Walking, Ribs, Lacygate.”

Replace ribs with cheese and I pretty much concur.

Reasons why SXSX rocks:

Festival organisation
From picking up of badges to the non-intrusive badge checkpoints around the huge convention centre, the Festival was well organised, staff were friendly and things just worked. No small feat when you consider the 6000 delegates.

The interactive playpen
Some creative relief in the foyer of the centre - the most lego you have ever seen under one roof. Delegates were invited to make something, photo it and tag it interactiveplaypen for the chance to win prizes. In fact just about everywhere you walked during the festival was a chance to win something (usually an iphone).

Many and varied
From the scale and subject matter of the events to the people attending, this wasn’t just about linux programmers and uber geeks, but featured a wealth of informative and varied sessions and people.

Austin
It’s weird and friendly with great bars. Like Bristol only with sunshine.

Free transport
I didn’t actually use it, but the Festival puts on free buses and our hotel had a shuttle running to the convention centre. This city takes the festival seriously, and so it should, film and interactive alone delivered $16.8 million to the local economy in 2007 and participants’ average daily spending was $264.

Many parties and much swag
From the free LED flashies at the Google party to a tiny card holder from moo, everywhere you went you could fill your boots with free stickers, postcards and magazines. Plus every evening had a jam-packed schedule of parties that went on through the night.

Geo-curiousness and ARGs
The hot topics at the Festival were mobile, creativity, collaboration and ARGs. Which was nice as not only is this where iShed is putting energy, they are also unique strengths of Bristol. Whilst we all learnt a lot, we also realised how ahead of the game we are in many ways. The Festival opens for panel ideas in June, and we will defintely be getting our thinking caps on.

Geek stuff
Use of sched to plan where you wanted to be (vital with so many concurrent events), use of meebo to check whether everyone else in the room was also confused by the crap performance artists, and great free wifi.

Web Awards
Compered by Eugene Mirman with askaninja, the awards took place in a MASSIVE room in the Hilton, were funny, mercifully short and Brits won overall.

Finally…

Silly dancing in a redneck cowboy bar (that was actually only me and Hazel) and first class upgrades: I saw Juno, Lars and the Real girl and Margot at the Wedding, ate much nice food and managed a sleep. Can I ever fly economy again? Thank you continental.