Quote:
Originally Posted by Syndic
I'm just tired of people pretending that it's not a godawful, ridiculous idea. The only thing they have more of than us is surface-level parking lots, which the SXSW bigshots seem to be big fans of. I guess we're victims of our own success. But yeah last time I was in San Antonio all I could find there was metal and bad Christian-sounding "rock" music that only people in small towns listen to. Most Austinites really don't realize how different things are here than other places (in Texas, at least).
Moving SXSW from Austin would be like moving Sundance from Utah. It's just crazy. People come for the city as much as they come for the entertainment.
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My brother works for a software company that is based in California. They have only two other offices on the planet. One is in Austin, the other is in London. He periodically flies to San Francisco for conferences there and gets to mingle with some of the workers who live in California. Somewhere along the line internet service providers (ISPs) came up in conversation. They were talking about internet speeds there versus what they are here. My brother said they told him they were paying 50 bucks a month for 5 mbps. They freaked out when he told them he gets 20 mbps at his house for the same amount. Now, my brother lives in far Southeast Austin. We get 200 mbps here in our neighborhood in South Austin, and Google started laying their new fiber network this week on our street. My brother was saying out in California, they might have one or two internet providers, but here in Austin we've got at least 4. It's pretty impressive that Austin has a better selection of internet providers, and at a higher speed than even some of the communities in the freaking bay area.
With that kind of bragging right, I would think it would benefit them to stay here. This city is so tech heavy, and for a big festival social media and connectivity matters immensely these days.
Austin would also be wise to keep SXSW. It encourages further upgrades to the local communication network. Companies also come to Austin for SXSW and do some amazing things. My brother was telling me Spotify completely gutted an old abandoned building down the street from his office, completely renovated it and used the space last year during SXSW. Once they leave, that building has had those improvements made and is good to go for whatever other use.