SXSW 2014

Collection of awesome photos of my time at SXSW 2014

I attended my first SXSW this year and I am still recovering. The grad school program I attend has a SXSW badge built into the tuition so I am lucky enough to get a badge that enabled me to go to all interactive, film and music events.

I absolutely loved my time at SXSW. I got to do a lot of awesome things. I saw Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey premiere Friday night in one of Austin's theatre's and got to attend a question and answer session with Neil DeGrasse Tyson and the producers. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson is just about everyone's favorite astrophysicist, it was a pleasure to get to hear him speak. I did have the chance to also hear him speak the next day at his keynote and it was amazing (Note: If you are interested in hearing Neil's keynote speech from SXSW you can listen to it on soundcloud here). He is just an absolutely amazing speaker and I recommend anyone go and listen to him and flail over his awesomeness.

There were quite a few panels I went to during the interactive portion of SXSW which had some awesome speakers. I got to see Andy Cohen speak with ZeFrank, Tyler Oakley and Grace Helbig on the nature of visual media. ZeFrank had some good comments about the nature of using the internet and video to put forward an idea and used as a marketing tool. A Conversation with George Takei was also another great panel that had George talk about his use of social media as a point for political activism.

Since this was my first SXSW I was completely unprepared for the number of parties that pop up throughout the entire city. I knew there would be a few hosted by various companies but I just had no idea about the sheer number. I had originally just been looking at the "official" SXSW schedule which did not mention any of the unofficial or company hosted parties so my schedule didn't have any of them down. My friends were quite useful in keeping me up to date on the various things going on as well as clue-ing me in to all the useful twitter feeds and websites that would post about the fun parties going on. This included the Buzzfeed party hosted at Molotov on Saturday night. They had live DJ, open bar, various glow stick jewelry and this awesome photobooth that we made liberal use of (as you can see here...)
I will admit, by and large, the best experience of SXSW though, was finding the existence of kimchi fries by Chi'lantro. Having lived here in Austin for a little while I thought I had become accustomed to how amazing our food options are but this one surprised me. It is a korean BBQ/Mexican fusion and it is so good. Kimchi fries are described as: "caramelized Kimchi, a mound of sizzling Korean BBQ, chopped grilled onions, cheddar and Monterey Jack cheese, cilantro, magic sauce, sriracha and sesame seeds. All set on top of a pile of crispy French fries". I don't think I could describe anything more magical. 

SXSW was a crazy, overwhelming experience. It was a lot for a newbie to handle. The advice I kept getting of "pace yourself" was absolutely accurate as I had to throw in the towel around Wednesday and call myself done. And then proceed to sleep for two days. But despite all of that it was a great time.