We know a little about South by Southwest (SXSW®) in one fashion or another. We know tons of people come to Austin for it each year and a bunch of bands play, but what exactly is it and what impact does it have on the city? Sterling Custom Homes, your Austin custom home builder, has done some digging to provide you with the answer to just that.
Since 1987, SXSW® has provided education, incubation, and entertainment to the Austin community and beyond. What started out as a small music conference and festival, SXSW® has grown immensely. In its humble beginnings, the SXSW® Music event had 700 registrants, a number that has grown to about 16,000 in 2011, with even more are anticipated this year. The SXSW® Film and Interactive elements were added in 1994 to support the growth of the two industries in Austin. These two events brought in about 32,000 registrants in 2011. The number of registrants increased by 40% from 2010 to 2011, accompanied by an estimates 126,000 total attendees. When you include the free concerts and other SXSW-sanctioned events, you’re looking at 286,000 total attendees for 2011. Imagine what kind of growth we might see in 2012. I can wait to see the numbers.
With 286,000 people coming to Austin for 9 days, there has to be some kind of economic impact. That impact plays to the tune of $167 million. In comparison, the Austin City Limits Music Festival brought $67 million to the local economy in 2011, as estimated by Angelou Economics. The Texas comptroller’s office released receipt figures for March 2011 for the 78701 ZIP code, which hosts most of Austin’s business district, and where most of the SXSW® events take place. Hotel receipts totaled $27 million, and liquor, beer and wine sales at bars, clubs and restaurants totaled $21 million. That leaves $119 million left for the remainder of the city. Some people don’t like the rapid growth of Austin, but with the emergence of huge revenue generating events like SXSW®, I can think of 167 million reasons to tolerate it.
The dates for SXSW® are as follows: Interactive – March 9-13, Film – March 9-17, and Music – March 13-18. The Music Festival will host over 2,000 acts on more than 90 stages, many of which are free to the public. Brave the crowd and go out and see some great shows!
If you’re going to SXSW® this year, leave us a comment to let us know what you are looking forward to most.