With the Austin Convention Center beginning to be remodeled, South
By Southwest (SXSW) has come up with a “reimagined South By Southwest
experience”, according to the website, leading to a festival that is one week long instead
of two. Although the event is shortening, the music showcase will be one day longer. It is
now sevendays long and occurs at the same time as the rest of the festival. With this shortening
of the festival, they are also planning to lower ticket prices to make the event more affordable. Other
changes have come to SXSW partially due to, according to the Austin Chronicle, the president and chief
of programming, Hugh Forrest, exiting from SXSW. Multiple staff members also left, including the senior
leadership for the Music and Comedy portion of the festival, causing even more change for SXSW.
