Texas SXSW Music Festival

The annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival is one of the largest musical festivals in the United States, providing viewers with over 2,000 performers at 90 different venues.

Since its beginning in 1987, the number of registrants has grown from 700 to over 16,000 from across the nation and the world. Due to the immense success, SXSW created other events like the interactiveand film festivals.

After a failed attempt to produce an extension of the New York City music festival in Austin, a few staff members ofThe Austin Chronicleorganised a local musical event, which quickly turned into a large scaled event.

The name "South by Southwest", which was chosen by one of the festival's founders, plays on the name of Alfred Hitchcock's film, "North by Northwest".