If I were not able to take this whole event day-by-day and then from there hour by hour, I would be pissed off all of the time. This is definitely a downfall of this festival: scheduling. There is simply too much happening here in a seemingly careless order. On top of it all, add the bars and venues that aren’t in the program because even they’re having huge free shows. I wanted to see AU yesterday -- a Portland band I’ve covered before during T:BA festival and would call friends -- playing two unofficial parties, but I couldn’t get in.

Starting the day at a decent hour, I managed to pull off yesterday’s blog and make it to a non-profit meet up within the heart of Trade Show. I found myself self-conscious explaining that my organization is on hiatus; the Board didn’t work out.  People were hasty to move on to a better networking opportunity than my broken org. However, I also received some love for being with KBOO.

Routines are forming, parking spots emerging, bearings rolling, names calling, dropping, stopping people in their tracks: today Al Gore is going to interview Sean Parker, founder of Napster. How is that possible? I just thought SXSW was basically a music festival. But actually, it’s all things happening. No festival manages to juxtapose corporate with indie culture more fruitfully than this one. To its discredit, there is simply nothing more complex than a SXSW program, at least compared to any event I’ve attended.

 There are many facets to South by Southwest Festival. The “convergence” is the mission and the miracle of it all. From all over the world, people crowd Austin Convention Center from all sorts of disciplines and levels of interest: gamers and tech-heads see the newest computers, graphics systems, gaming concepts, phones, and what all; entrepreneurs discover startups and network with the establishment; activists discuss internet freedom and other political happenings. The hard part is not feeling that you’re missing out when you can’t get to things. Last night, I stayed out until 3am, dancing to Electro, House, and Dubstep on the amazing 6^th Ave.

Upon receipt of the festival guides, after curving through the maze of registrants looking for their badge, and having perused three volumes of programming (Interactive, Film, and Music) detailed in paperback books akin to college course catalogues – however with a whole lot of advertisements from major corporate sponsors – my head began to spin with confusion over just how a festival like this is capable of coming together to offer so much in so short of time. I am new to South by Southwest; this is my first year in attendance.