Audience members watch a show at SXSW. You’re never far from corporate branding at the festival.After a two-year COVID break, the hyper-frenzied music-film-tech-etc. fest returned March 11-20, albeit to a changed Austin. After topping countless"hip" lists and attracting displaced tech libertarians — hello, Mr. Musk — the festival's host city is deep in an intractable housing crisis, the likes of which have already infected other beloved cultural hubs.
This year's SXSW may not have featured Lady Gaga barfing glitter inside a three-story Doritos bag — yes, that happened pre-pandemic — but it was still awash in symbols of the festival's shift away from its homespun roots: endless advertisements for cryptocurrency and NFTs, everything stamped with a corporate sponsorship and smiling sales folk shilling new beverages.
"Everything in Austin is rapidly becoming more expensive, partially due to real estate being held as an investment rather than as a place to live," Ethan Smith, a former housing Advocacy director for the University of Texas's student government, told me.
Austin is its own worst enemy.