My SXSW adventure started off great. Because of the crazy traffic downtown, I decided to park 15ish miles away and ride my bike in to town. It was beautiful weather and a beautiful idea….
I realize that I should back up for a second. Some of you might not know what SXSW is. It’s a yearly festival held in Austin TX that has three sections- film, music, and interactive. Big independent film productions make feature/short films to show at the festival. Artists from every genre fill the streets with music. Big name companies in the interactive space show off their latest gizmo.
It’s basically a tech/music/film spring break. And it’s massive.
Because this is my first year in Austin, I decided to not buy a badge and go the free route. Badges are close to a thousand dollars, so I thought I would get a feel for it this year and then potentially buy a badge next year. (Badges get you into the actual conference).
As a non-badge holder, there’s a lot you can’t do. You can’t get into the big show floor, you can’t go to many of the meetup/networking events, and you can’t go to the talks or panels.
However, as a non-badge holder, there is still a decent amount to do. SXSW has several free events like a Job Fair, a Maker’s Conference, several outdoor film screenings, and many music festivals.
On top of that, there are a ton of unofficial events that companies put on. (Which is a great way to get lots of swag…)
Anyway, I ultimately decided to go to as many free events as I could in a day and explore the whole festival via bike. It’s hard to get around in a car and the event is spread of a large area, so riding a bike is probably best.
To sum up my experience, I made a short video. It was going to be much longer and include a lot more video, but unfortunately, my trip ended prematurely.
Watch the SXSW highlight video on YouTube
I got a flat tire. Rooky mistake. I didn’t bring any extra tires (or really anything to help in an emergency).
I was 7 miles from my car. And I walked the whole way back. Pushing my bike along. There were big patches of mud and I was very dehydrated. What had been a magical day, was now a long exhausting day.
I was planning on going to multiple days of the festival. Go to every event. Film everything I could. Make a sweet highlight video with interesting slow-mo shots and dynamic timelapses. But I lost all of my energy for it. I will definitely try again next year (and hopefully have a badge).
What’s the point?
This story has got me thinking about inspiration and creativity. It’s amazing to me how a simple mood change can affect creativity so much. I went from complete excitement with the creative juices flowing to a complete lack of inspiration. By the end of the day, I no longer even wanted to make a highlight video of SXSW.
And that’s why it has taken my two weeks to post this. I needed time to recover to where I felt like I could edit the video. Unfortunately, the damage had been done and I didn’t have very much footage (hence the video only be 30 seconds long…)
My biggest takeaway from this experience is this- Sometimes my creative drive will be lost. Sometimes it takes time to recover. I need to constantly fight for that initial excitement I had at the beginning of the project.