This year I will finally be attending the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. I've always wanted to attend but school has been in the way. SXSW has been called "spring break for web developers" by Valleywag, but it's essentially a 5 day festival/conference filled with interesting panels at the start of the day and then rounded out with loads of parties and mixers hosted by big names like Digg and Facebook.
"The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology. Whether you are a hard-core geek, a dedicated content creator, a new media entrepreneur, or just someone who likes being around an extremely creative community, SXSW Interactive is for you!"
Back to the title of this post. I just landed in Austin and will be here for the next 5 days so if you'd like to meet up with me, just let me know. It will probably be easiest to follow me on Twitter and see what I'm up to. SCHED.org has a handy SXSW 2009 guide detailing panels and parties. I will probably be at the Radar / Hack College party tonight.
I have a lofty goal of hanging out the majority of the 500 business cards I came with. I've already handed out 7 just from SXSWers I met in the airport (@matto @andrea @mattallica @jaymoney @robblatt @iKrissi @theambershow). We'll see what happens.
Are you at SXSW now? What do you hope to get out of the festival? What events would you recommend I attend?