In recent years, many buzz-worthy bands have played a ridiculous number of shows at SXSW – sometimes more than a dozen in a few days. Though exhausting for the bands, this schedule makes it easier for them to break even and allows more people to hear them.
This year, we kept running into musicians who told us festival organizers had started cracking down on bands with multiple bookings, sometimes demanding that they cancel surplus gigs. We presume the reason is that the bigger showcases will suffer if fans have lots of chances to catch a band. But from our perspective, only bands with significant buzz are going to get a multitude of bookings.
Then there’s the flip side. When acts like the Strokes, DFA 1979 and Dan Deacon opt to play only one exclusive show, venues struggle to handle the demand and keep things from descending into chaos. A palpable buzz developed around the one-off shows, though, so more acts might want to consider taking the fewer-gigs approach, assuming appropriate venues and security are in place.
Speaking of crowd control, maybe it’s time to consider holding SXSW in a week that doesn’t coincide with St. Patrick’s Day. The main strip has little to do with music any more and has become a holding pen for wasted college kids. When you come across hundreds of people in line for the promise of free booze but no one knows (or cares) who’s playing, that’s a problem. There are plenty of other places in the world that better suit the spring break crowd.
