[scrollaway]

I clicked the article thinking it was about the recent deaths at SXSW.

It's someone complaining about bands. There's first world problems, and then there's "first world" first world problems. You americans are blessed with amazing conferences of all sorts especially tech, SXSW included, but god forbid the music was "not obscure enough".

Why is this even on HN?

[dmm]

jwz is a well known hacker and sf club owner. SXSW is about, among other things, the music, so I think the music is a worthy topic of discussion.

The fact that the US has lots of conferences is a good reason to avoid the bad ones.

[joezydeco]

At least a complaint (from an actual club owner) about bands not going onstage on-schedule has some basis.

Here's someone complaining that the Spotify house "was too corporate"

http://techrotica.tumblr.com/post/79212740983/for-the-record...

[applecore]

SXSW is a music festival. Music is the reason everyone is there.

[PanMan]

It used to be. Now, the interactive part is bigger than the music part.

[danso]

Likely the author is Jamie Zawinski, one of the creators of Netscape and proprietor of a SF music venue and all-around hacker legend.

[chiph]

That is indeed Jamie.

This is the first complaint I've seen about disorganization. Most of the complaints I've heard are that the artists are too mainstream. If they're going to put on someone like Lady Gaga, they should just rent the UT football stadium and have that part be a mega festival on it's own weekend with 70k attendees. SXSW (music) has always been about the bands that could be big in about 1-2 years. You go to listen to them so that yes, you can brag to your friends that you heard them before they became famous.

They need to dial it back some.

[Litost]

"They need to dial it back some."

I had the same thought about Glastonbury, when they were talking about not running it a few years back, because it had got too unwieldy and a lot of the regular goers were complaining it had sold out and become too big.

As you suggest, if you could split the festival (and the crowds) in two and have one festival cover all the larger (Lady Gaga, Oasis, Rolling Stones...) or more mainstream/hyped acts along with the people who primarily aren't interested in the more obscure bands/experiences to be had away from the main stages, that would then leave the rest of the festival to the regulars who want to wonder around the green/healing fields and see all the lesser known (but often better/more interesting) bands.

I'm not sure how the logistics (or planning) would pan out given that i suspect the majority of money the festival forks out are for the bigger acts. But if they were to run these two festivals in consecutive weeks perhaps the economies of that would make it more viable.

Fortunately Glastonbury has managed to stay resolutely non-corporate, unlike most of the larger UK music festivals (V, Reading, Leeds etc.) and still manage to host a shedload of really good bands across the fame/size spectrum.

But maybe, in a similar fasion, if SXSW were to split and leave the corporate shilling to the mainstream crowd/event, maybe the other half of the festival could return to more how it was, discovering new music with people who care about new music and not having to queue for ages for the privilege?