While it was unclear whether the return of South by Southwest in-person is living up to expectations for the wider business community after just one day, one thing was clear: the Austin startup community had plenty of pent-up energy.
The SXSW Startup Crawl at Capital Factory in downtown may have been its biggest ever. Thousands of people streamed into the building, with a line going out the door and halfway around the block at Eighth and Brazos streets.
“We honestly didn't know exactly what to expect,” Capital Factory co-founder Gordon Daugherty said amidst a stream of people checking out booths set up by startups. “We were thinking that overall registration for South By are certainly going to be down versus where they were 2019 and 2018.”
But less than a day before the event, Capital Factory announced it was the largest crawl ever.
“I think it's just really indicative of, even if South By overall is going to have fewer overall attendance, everybody wants to connect, they want to come out,” Daugherty said. “So this is an overweighted activity versus other years.”
Just across downtown, Moneta Ventures was hosting a party at the W Austin, which was largely populated by venture capitalists from across the country as well as startup founders.
Aasim Hasan, an Austin-based partner with Moneta, said he had suspected SXSW would be at about 50% attendance this year. But he was blown away when he saw the long lines weaving across the badge pickup area at the convention center.
"I think that in the last month people are like 'To hell with this,'" he said. "This is it. It's on. It's our end of Covid. I'm not saying that Covid has ended by any shape or form, but it is kind of like everyone wants to get out."
More images from day one
The big corporate activations are in full swing, the viral marketing campaigns are out in droves and movie stars are walking the red carpet. Here are a few more images from the first 24-plus hours of SXSW.
SXSW 2022 day one
What others are saying
• NBC News dropped in and provided a reminder of the importance of in-person SXSW traffic for businesses in Austin's urban core, with quotes from Red River Cultural District Executive Director Cody Cowan and Stephen Sternschein, managing partner at music event producer Heard Presents. A stat stuck out from Jeff Mettler, partner at Home Slice Pizza: During SXSW, the pizzeria produces more than 3,500 pizza pies and 10,000 individual pizza slices a week, up from roughly 2,500 pies and 4,000-plus slices on an average week. Many interviewed by NBC hoped for a return to near 2019 levels of business, even if total South By attendance isn't quite as high as pre-pandemic.
• Attendees might have seen posters plastered around the convention center trying to catch the attention of actor Nicolas Cage, who has a movie showing at the film festival, complete with a phone number directing them to Cage's self-described "biggest fan." Austin360 called the number and found the person on the other end was Robby Schnetz of Austin, and reported that he printed nearly 500 copies of the flyer.
• An Activision Blizzard executive was removed from a March 12 panel spot because of ongoing workplace misconduct and sexual harassment investigations into the company, The Washington Post reported. A vice president at Amazon Prime Gaming is taking their spot.
ABJ's Will Anderson contributed reporting.
