The South by Southwest Festival in Austin attracted record numbers to this year’s 10-day music and film festival, Reuters reported earlier today.
Here’s a look at the numbers of this year’s SXSW:
- 13,022 music industry professionals registered, a record number.
- Nearly 2,000 artists from more than 40 countries performed through Sunday. That’s an increase of about 100 bands from last year’s festival.
- About 100,000 people were expected to visit Austin last week to check out the festival, bringing with them $100 million to the city’s economy. Official figures are still being calculated.
That’s a pretty good sign – despite an ongoing recession and declining record sales, people still want to check out good live music. My buddy Nick was one of the 100,000 people in Austin last week – I’m so jealous of him right now! He said Andrew W.K. was awesome and he checked out W.K. four or five times. Judging by the record numbers and continuing growth of festival performances since SXSW started in 1987, I’d say this festival will keep on going each year. Now I just need to figure out how to make it down to Austin one of these years. Especially after the 10,000 Lakes Festival, my favorite music festival within 500 miles of Grand Forks, has been all but permanently canceled. Who wants to go to Austin next year?
