SXSW 2019 Conference - Our take

It's March 2019 and Austin Texas is where South by South West takes place once a year.

This is one of the biggest tech conferences of the year and is been since 1987. What SXSW has is a unique feeling because there is a combination of 3 things that make this a great place for a conference: 1 - great weather, 2 - great food, 3 - great people.

Those 3 things are key to the evolution of SXSW. The conference goes for 10 days but it's separated into 3 main chapters, the first 4 days are dedicated to Technology, then 3 days for music and 3 days for the film industry.

The city of Austin is transformed during these days and it is so big that many of the streets downtown are closed, you can only walk around or use electric scooters or bikes. And that way you get to meet incredible people on the streets. All the top tech brands are doing activations around the conference and that’s what makes this conference so interesting. Besides the hundreds of speakers that you can see during the conference itself, it’s what happens around you that makes everything super interesting.

This is a conference that you go to meet new people and create new relationships. Like-minded people in the field that you are currently in. Or from other industries. I went for the first time in 2017 and this was my second time there. It was a great experience to meet with great people all around. I’ve seen friends from New York more during SXSW than when we were in New York!

If you want to know what are the latest trends or where the industry is going but especially if you are also new to technology/music/film in general, you can enjoy this conference to learn a lot and of course, at night there are bars with activations everywhere with parties all the way around. Having the Badge from the conference is needed but there are some venues that don’t require a badge to come in.

From big companies to small startups that just started, SXSW combines them all.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality had their own presence at SXSW. I was able to experience great things like the VR Cinema at the Marriott Hotel (which was part of SXSW).

The essence of SXSW is exactly that, meeting great people at a great place, checking the latest trends in technology music and film industries and have a great time while doing it by getting into these parties with great music, great food and live shows.