Before the pandemic, South by Southwest was an experience that engaged all your senses — often overwhelming them, even.
But, like almost everything else, the massive and globally recognized conference and festival has had to make some major Covid pivots to navigate this new world safely.
For example, this year's festival will be entirely virtual. No in-person events. Instead, SXSW has inked a partnership with Boston-based video conferencing company Brightcove Inc. (Nasdaq: BCOV) for this year's festival and on-going programming throughout 2021, Brightcove Field CTO Dave Bornstein said.
But that doesn't mean that SXSW will feel like a one long Zoom call March 16-20. Brightcove and SXSW envision a broadcast style that might feel more like a familiar TED Talk or even your favorite streaming service. With that in mind, the conference will be viewable on Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Android TV and Samsung TV, in addition to laptops and other devices.
"They don't want it to seem like a stuffy event," Bornstein said. "They want it to feel like you have an experience ... where you can tune in and flip back and forth. We really went for the Amazon Prime/Netflix type of experience. It's all about the content."
The conference will be broadcast across five channels, which will be called stages to fit with SXSW's vibe. It will feature both pre-recorded sessions and performances as well as live ones. From a laptop or smart device, attendees will also be able to network and chat in breakout rooms, which can be configured to different levels of moderation.
Brightcove was founded in 2004 and went public in 2012. It has 12 offices, though none in Austin, and reported nearly $143.7 million in revenue for the first nine months of 2020, up from $136.9 million in the same period in 2019.
While it might not be the household name that Zoom has become, the company has dozens of major virtual events on its resume, including big conferences for SAP, ServiceNow and the National Association of Broadcasters show. It has also worked on concerts, including the Dropkick Murphys concert at Fenway Park, which had 9 million viewers. And, last week, it announced it has received two Emmy Awards in the technology and engineering category.
Bornstein said Brightcove has worked on streaming projects with SXSW in the past. The company earlier this year was invited to bid on the SXSW production. Brightcove likely stood out because it offers a lot of monetization tools and customizations, including ads, vouchers, pay-per-view and other features that can leverage revenue.
But both Brightcove and SXSW have acknowledged there's currently no real way to replicate the in-person SXSW experience.
"It's not going to be the same," Bornstein said.
During a Jan. 28 presentation for the Austin Young Chamber, SXSW Programming Officer Hugh Forrest said transitioning SXSW to an entirely virtual festival has presented a lot of challenges, as well as opportunities.
“It’s very much a learning year for us in terms of what things are most attractive in terms of sponsors and brands that have traditionally worked with SXSW," he said.
On one hand, he said, SXSW is more affordable and can, therefore, reach a lot of people that may have skipped it in years past. SXSW Online passes are currently listed online for $249 and get higher as the event gets closer, jumping to $399 in March.
In 2020, before SXSW was canceled because of the pandemic, the get-you-into-everything platinum badge cost $1,600.
Going virtual also means an end to SXSW's ubiquitous lines and never-ending sense of FOMO.
In many ways, the pandemic forced SXSW to do what it's been discussing for years — expanding to more year-round content, Forrest said.
“I think that the model for this in the event industry is what TED and TED-X do," he said.
But it's tough to replace face-to-face serendipity, he said.
“None of the apps that are out there right now can offer the same kind of networking functionality that happens in a real world event," he said "Maybe we’ll be there as these apps continue to improve and evolve."
