SXSW INTERACTIVE 2008

For future attendees… get there early. we did and it totally paid off. The lines weren’t bad but we could easily see getting to the SXSW registration and badge pickup area 1-2 hours later and getting mauled by the massive amounts of people that finally decided to rise from the comforts of the Ikea Lounge to ascend to the fourth floor foor to partake in the cattle herding experiment.

If you took the time to upload a photo, don’t worry when they don’t have it. You can make a funny face in the countertop webvideo camera they have. no do-overs either - can be kinda tricky for you, but also a gamble for them.

Next is the goodie bag. Every good conference has one and SXSW is no exception. Unfortunately, 65-70 trees were obviously killed during the assembly of the contents. Funny only because the $40 SXSW program that you only get 1 of has a full page advertisement of every single pamphlet inside the Adobe logo adorning canvas bag.
A few cheap extras were included such as a guitar pick for my growing collection of unused corporate guitar picks, a beer coolie for the beers that weren’t included, and #D glasses which there is no real good reason for.

Once you get your badge, you can go anywhere without any of the volunteers offering you advice. You can go anywhere. ANYWHERE. That changed 20 minutes later when we were told to not go in there while they are setting up.. . so apparently the badges do have limitations and our investigative curiosity helped us find it.

On the way to lunch, it was refreshing to see the recycle bins beginning to overflow with goodie bag throwaways.

Next up… the first session!