By the great Andy Langer:
RIP SXSW Music. (A hasty post-mortem for SXSW 2025 and SXSW Music itself)
All week, I’ve been telling everyone that asked that I thought we were witnessing a festival in its death throes- a Snack Size SXSW with feather-light crowds, low hotel occupancy, surprisingly few sponsors, and a dearth of legitimate buzz bands. Given the closure next year of the convention center, the economic uncertainty that faces not just consumers but also sponsors, my guess was they’d try to do a 2026 business-as-usual and then fold up shop in 2027, using whatever brand equity was left to take it on the road to tertiary markets for mini culture festivals. The second part could still happen. Today’s announcement- a downsizing that effectively eliminates the traditionally partitioned music portion of the festival- caught me a little by surprise but actually might be the right move. Folks, including SXSW (who talked about convergence a lot at one point but did very little to make it a reality) have been suggesting for years that only convergence can save SXSW. Film now carries SXSW. And in large part because of the unpredictable ebbs and flows of the tech part of the festival, SXSW Music hasn’t been sustainable since at least 2018 and by 2019 was already noticeably smaller and less impactful than ever. Then came the pandemic and out of that, new SXSW ownership. A lot of what I’m going to argue here is stuff I’ve posted in previous post-mortems. But I’d argue we’re here now because SXSW has been so slow (and, oddly, reluctant) to right its own ship- to update the formula, loosen the reigns, and embrace reality. As such, a lot of these observations and criticisms are evergreen.
- Post-pandemic, a lot of folks have celebrated a renewed emphasis on bands, not brands, but we saw the cost this year in light attendance across the board. Sure, you saw young acts, waited in fewer lines and moved around more easily. And “Discovery” is nice conceptually, but big names/big shows/big lines used to trickle down money to venues, service industry, caterers, planners, event builders, security etc. Now, not so much. And “Discovery” and the utility of SXSW for musicians is undercut when top-tier acts don’t come: big names bring upper-echelon industry types w/ em’: their managers, booking agents, label teams, publicists etc. that only come when their moneymaking artists appear at the festival. If you’re a young act traveling great distances, paying inflated lodging prices to play for petty cash or badge/wristband paydays, even in the digital age, these are the people young acts desperately hope/need to be in front of. If they stay home, who are the “industry” the young discoverable bands are playing for at what’s by SXSW’s own admission is designed to be an “industry” gathering? Meanwhile, less corporate day parties/buyouts mean less money for clubs already struggling w/ rising rent and thin margins.
- There were clearly fewer acts and less stages this year, but still far too many for much of anything to be packed. In 2019 the festival had 1900 acts and 94 stages. Post-pandemic, those numbers shrunk some. But you can easily trace the death of SXSW Music to overabundance propelled by SXSW Inc.’s fear and greed. Over the years, SXSW snatched up every room with a stage they could, afraid they’d go rogue and piggyback w/ “pirate showcases” or unofficial parties. That’s clearly not necessary now. The genie left that bottle long ago and for years I’ve agued 1900 acts < 900 well-curated acts. SXSW Film (or Sundance for that matter) doesn’t find screens for every submission: they carefully pick films that mean something/that distributors might want etc. Music, though maybe even more subjective, seems more scattershot. Plus, 1900 acts spread across rooms that aren’t usually music rooms means a band can fly from Scandinavia only to play a room with poor sound, shaky can’t-keep-your-drums-upright stages, and non-existent sightlines. It also means spreading out the few high-profile acts SXSW has to make it worthwhile for these non-music venues to participate—taking crowds and dollars away from the clubs who fight the good fight to present live music year round, not just these 4 days. And for the bands? The costs for transportation, lodging and equipment rentals have increased exponentially over the years, particularly post-pandemic, sometimes prohibitively so. For bands at almost every level, some sort of corporate sponsorship is necessary to make it work. Simply put, SXSW Music lost its utility.
-SXSW got gross in the oughts’ (“What brand are you most excited to see at SXSW”? Ugh.) It was dangerous (the Red River tragedy) and laughably loathsome (The Doritos vending machine stage). It had to shrink to survive but I think the shrinkage came from market forces, not a careful and precise restructuring from SXSW itself. And those market forces have come home to roost. SXSW is expensive- for bands at every level, for attendees and for fans who have to pay for travel, accommodations, food etc. With expense reports being more closely scrutinized and an economic downturn clearly on the horizon, in general, partying it up in Austin a few days a year is no longer a annual given. As gross as SXSW’s lean into overt commercialization has been and as much as it threatened the soul of its origins, big corporations have always keep SXSW’s lights on. They pay big sponsor money, pony up for the parties and underwrite the mid-to-large size music talent. But when huge tech companies are laying off percentages of their employees they’re not only not in a position to throw big parties/big talent, but also not in a position to send their employees here with badges.
-For years, it’s been impossible not to notice how parking woes, hotel prices, traffic etc. drop off considerably when SXSW Music begins. The town empties out considerably the Wednesday AM after tech/film ends. The trickle-down for every sector of Austin business- from service industry to AirBNB rentls etc- ain’t what it used to be. And while many folks enjoyed big unofficial SXSW events like Luck Reunion, South By San Jose or the C-Boy’s-based SOCO Stomp, they’re mostly for locals without wristbands or badges- good for local business, bad for SXSW Inc. SXSW Inc- who’ve been driven by protectionism-at-all-costs ethos for years- might have been right about this: at some point, if there’s enough free stuff outside of SXSW’s control, eventually, few would feel like they “need” a badge or wristband. And again, it feels like we’ve been at this point since at least 2019. Cleary, if SXSW were to entirely go away (and I’m not yet it saying it will) those kind of events would likely continue in some way. But they’d obviously have a harder time booking non-Austin talent. Is a mostly-Austin SXSW that isn’t SXSW – one that looks more like Free Week than SXSW – a good or bad thing? We may find out.
-And here’s something SXSW-watchers have whispered about for years- SXSW Inc. hasn’t made many friends. SXSW Inc’s go-to mode is hardball- they’re protectionists that load up contracts with fine print and reliably make it seem like they’re the ones doing you a favor allowing them to do business with them. And for the last few years, when everything started to shrink, that’s when having friends would matter most.. And I’d argue it appears they’ve run out of friends. And there's nobody in Austin that feels like they owe Penske anything, even if they indeed saved SXSW from what was surely gonna be a pandemic-fueled bankruptcy.
I still believe Austin needs SXSW. And I believe the 2026 reset- which hopefully is a true reset, not just a calendar change- could save SXSW. But what I suspect will happen is that for most of Austin, what days SXSW Inc runs its festival and what days we see music won’t change much. The big free parties will remain Wednesday-Sunday with lineups built primarily of Austin music and a handful of holdovers that took corporate money to finance their trips and are thus able to hang around a few extra days, Whether those events can find enough sponsors to keep them free is the big unknown.
This much we know: losing SXSW Music (and later, perhaps SXSW itself) represents the biggest existential crisis for Austin Music since the pandemic. The best case scenario? SXSW Music as we know it is dead and whatever you consider to be the spirit of SXSW lives on. That’s gonna take a strong economy, a united front from Austin’s music scene and a lot of luck.
Onward.
RIP SXSW Music. (A hasty post-mortem for SXSW 2025 and SXSW Music itself)
All week, I’ve been telling everyone that asked that I thought we were witnessing a festival in its death throes- a Snack Size SXSW with feather-light crowds, low hotel occupancy, surprisingly few sponsors, and a dearth of legitimate buzz bands. Given the closure next year of the convention center, the economic uncertainty that faces not just consumers but also sponsors, my guess was they’d try to do a 2026 business-as-usual and then fold up shop in 2027, using whatever brand equity was left to take it on the road to tertiary markets for mini culture festivals. The second part could still happen. Today’s announcement- a downsizing that effectively eliminates the traditionally partitioned music portion of the festival- caught me a little by surprise but actually might be the right move. Folks, including SXSW (who talked about convergence a lot at one point but did very little to make it a reality) have been suggesting for years that only convergence can save SXSW. Film now carries SXSW. And in large part because of the unpredictable ebbs and flows of the tech part of the festival, SXSW Music hasn’t been sustainable since at least 2018 and by 2019 was already noticeably smaller and less impactful than ever. Then came the pandemic and out of that, new SXSW ownership. A lot of what I’m going to argue here is stuff I’ve posted in previous post-mortems. But I’d argue we’re here now because SXSW has been so slow (and, oddly, reluctant) to right its own ship- to update the formula, loosen the reigns, and embrace reality. As such, a lot of these observations and criticisms are evergreen.
- Post-pandemic, a lot of folks have celebrated a renewed emphasis on bands, not brands, but we saw the cost this year in light attendance across the board. Sure, you saw young acts, waited in fewer lines and moved around more easily. And “Discovery” is nice conceptually, but big names/big shows/big lines used to trickle down money to venues, service industry, caterers, planners, event builders, security etc. Now, not so much. And “Discovery” and the utility of SXSW for musicians is undercut when top-tier acts don’t come: big names bring upper-echelon industry types w/ em’: their managers, booking agents, label teams, publicists etc. that only come when their moneymaking artists appear at the festival. If you’re a young act traveling great distances, paying inflated lodging prices to play for petty cash or badge/wristband paydays, even in the digital age, these are the people young acts desperately hope/need to be in front of. If they stay home, who are the “industry” the young discoverable bands are playing for at what’s by SXSW’s own admission is designed to be an “industry” gathering? Meanwhile, less corporate day parties/buyouts mean less money for clubs already struggling w/ rising rent and thin margins.
- There were clearly fewer acts and less stages this year, but still far too many for much of anything to be packed. In 2019 the festival had 1900 acts and 94 stages. Post-pandemic, those numbers shrunk some. But you can easily trace the death of SXSW Music to overabundance propelled by SXSW Inc.’s fear and greed. Over the years, SXSW snatched up every room with a stage they could, afraid they’d go rogue and piggyback w/ “pirate showcases” or unofficial parties. That’s clearly not necessary now. The genie left that bottle long ago and for years I’ve agued 1900 acts < 900 well-curated acts. SXSW Film (or Sundance for that matter) doesn’t find screens for every submission: they carefully pick films that mean something/that distributors might want etc. Music, though maybe even more subjective, seems more scattershot. Plus, 1900 acts spread across rooms that aren’t usually music rooms means a band can fly from Scandinavia only to play a room with poor sound, shaky can’t-keep-your-drums-upright stages, and non-existent sightlines. It also means spreading out the few high-profile acts SXSW has to make it worthwhile for these non-music venues to participate—taking crowds and dollars away from the clubs who fight the good fight to present live music year round, not just these 4 days. And for the bands? The costs for transportation, lodging and equipment rentals have increased exponentially over the years, particularly post-pandemic, sometimes prohibitively so. For bands at almost every level, some sort of corporate sponsorship is necessary to make it work. Simply put, SXSW Music lost its utility.
-SXSW got gross in the oughts’ (“What brand are you most excited to see at SXSW”? Ugh.) It was dangerous (the Red River tragedy) and laughably loathsome (The Doritos vending machine stage). It had to shrink to survive but I think the shrinkage came from market forces, not a careful and precise restructuring from SXSW itself. And those market forces have come home to roost. SXSW is expensive- for bands at every level, for attendees and for fans who have to pay for travel, accommodations, food etc. With expense reports being more closely scrutinized and an economic downturn clearly on the horizon, in general, partying it up in Austin a few days a year is no longer a annual given. As gross as SXSW’s lean into overt commercialization has been and as much as it threatened the soul of its origins, big corporations have always keep SXSW’s lights on. They pay big sponsor money, pony up for the parties and underwrite the mid-to-large size music talent. But when huge tech companies are laying off percentages of their employees they’re not only not in a position to throw big parties/big talent, but also not in a position to send their employees here with badges.
-For years, it’s been impossible not to notice how parking woes, hotel prices, traffic etc. drop off considerably when SXSW Music begins. The town empties out considerably the Wednesday AM after tech/film ends. The trickle-down for every sector of Austin business- from service industry to AirBNB rentls etc- ain’t what it used to be. And while many folks enjoyed big unofficial SXSW events like Luck Reunion, South By San Jose or the C-Boy’s-based SOCO Stomp, they’re mostly for locals without wristbands or badges- good for local business, bad for SXSW Inc. SXSW Inc- who’ve been driven by protectionism-at-all-costs ethos for years- might have been right about this: at some point, if there’s enough free stuff outside of SXSW’s control, eventually, few would feel like they “need” a badge or wristband. And again, it feels like we’ve been at this point since at least 2019. Cleary, if SXSW were to entirely go away (and I’m not yet it saying it will) those kind of events would likely continue in some way. But they’d obviously have a harder time booking non-Austin talent. Is a mostly-Austin SXSW that isn’t SXSW – one that looks more like Free Week than SXSW – a good or bad thing? We may find out.
-And here’s something SXSW-watchers have whispered about for years- SXSW Inc. hasn’t made many friends. SXSW Inc’s go-to mode is hardball- they’re protectionists that load up contracts with fine print and reliably make it seem like they’re the ones doing you a favor allowing them to do business with them. And for the last few years, when everything started to shrink, that’s when having friends would matter most.. And I’d argue it appears they’ve run out of friends. And there's nobody in Austin that feels like they owe Penske anything, even if they indeed saved SXSW from what was surely gonna be a pandemic-fueled bankruptcy.
I still believe Austin needs SXSW. And I believe the 2026 reset- which hopefully is a true reset, not just a calendar change- could save SXSW. But what I suspect will happen is that for most of Austin, what days SXSW Inc runs its festival and what days we see music won’t change much. The big free parties will remain Wednesday-Sunday with lineups built primarily of Austin music and a handful of holdovers that took corporate money to finance their trips and are thus able to hang around a few extra days, Whether those events can find enough sponsors to keep them free is the big unknown.
This much we know: losing SXSW Music (and later, perhaps SXSW itself) represents the biggest existential crisis for Austin Music since the pandemic. The best case scenario? SXSW Music as we know it is dead and whatever you consider to be the spirit of SXSW lives on. That’s gonna take a strong economy, a united front from Austin’s music scene and a lot of luck.
Onward.
