AMMUNITION: ARM YOURSELF:

25 TIPS FOR SXSW (PART 1 OF 5)

As most of you know the SXSW Music + Film + Interactive  Festivals and Conferences are fast approaching.  Over the next five days, I’ll provide you with 5 different daily tips in various areas (lodging, driving, getting around Austin, etc.) that will hopefully help you maximize your trip based on my own personal experiences.

My focus will mainly be on the Music and Media Conferences (March 17-21), but many of my tips and advice will be general enough that you can apply them towards any part of SXSW as I’ve learned a lot from what used to be my almost ritualistic annual escapades of drinking Shiner Bock (actually I prefer Blonde), eating not enough BBQ, and trying to make it to too many music shows and parties over the course of nearly a week in Austin.

Because many of you might be scrambling around trying to book last minute hotel rooms, I’ll start off with these 5 Lodging Tips. 

1. Pick a hotel, Any hotel

You may want the Driskill, but realistically unless someone else is footing the bill and you pretty much have standing reservations you probably won’t be staying there. Sure the Gayot 4 key winning Intercontinental, Omni, and Hilton Hotels are where you might see some of the more established acts and keynote speakers staying, but you probably won’t end up there either. The 4th Street hotels (Four Seasons, Radisson, and the other Hilton) make up the rest of the prime walk to EVERYTHING located hotels however, if you wanted to stay there you should’ve booked your hotel rooms at least six months ago (and even then they might not have had the availability).

This isn’t really one of those times where you have to be super snobby about what hotel you stay in so long as you feel safe in it. You’re going to spend at least 20 hours of each day away from it. This isn’t a spa retreat, all you need is someplace relatively close to shower, sleep, and that hopefully has wireless. There are a lot of good hotels, and you’d be surprised that most of them are about the same level of quality.

2. Stick to One Hotel

If you aren’t staying at a friends home in Austin, you should If at all possible, attempt to stay all of the nights you are in Austin in one hotel. One year, due to a last minute decision to attend SXSW (a boat many of you might be in now) we had to book rooms at various hotels due to lack of availability (most of the closer hotels couldn’t accommodate us for our first two nights, and the ones that could were overcharging, so we had to stay further away from downtown). Changing hotels more than once is definitely a pain, so if you can avoid this definitely do. There is nothing more annoying than having to check out at 11am to switch hotels when you just got to bed at 5, 6, or even 7 am and might still be a little intoxicated/hung over.

3. Check for Cancellations

 If you do happen to get stuck having to book rooms at multiple hotels, try checking to see if the hotel you’d prefer to stay all nights at had any rooms open up via either cancellations or no shows. Cancellations and no shows are common during events like SXSW due to many reasons. Here are some of the common ones:

- Booking of extra rooms – Sometimes people book an extra room or two, counting on having more friends making the trip with them. Sometimes those friends bail.

- No Shows – This is more common with the further away hotels. One thing that people seeking hotels last minute sometimes do is book a further away hotel, yet later end up locating a closer hotel that has the availability to accommodate them. They don’t always remember to cancel the further away hotel resulting in a no show and thus opening up the room. (If you happen to be one of those people who forgot to cancel your “extra” hotel room, you should try to contact the hotel as soon as possible if you provided them with a credit card number so that you don’t get charged—most of the hotel staffers are pretty accommodating during this time if you are polite and patient as they usually have more than enough clientele during this time of year)

Other common causes of cancellations are trip/flight delays. Since March is technically the tail end of winter in much of the country flights are often delayed, and road trips sometimes take a lot longer than SXSW attendees anticipate.

4. Negotiate

Another thing you can do while you are at your hotel is negotiate pricing once you are there, it doesn’t really hurt to try. During that same year that I ended up having to book rooms at multiple hotels, on our final night we were supposed to stay at yet another hotel. This time it wasn’t due to availability, but cost. Since it was a weekend night the hotels had a higher rate. In the end, I ended up being able to get the same rate that the hotel we were supposed to be wrapping up our stay in Austin at was offering, which was a huge relief as we were exhausted by that point.

5. Stay an Extra Night

If you are on an extremely tight budget, this may not be possible. However, staying an extra night after SXSW is over can really be worth it to avoid all of the crowds of people at the airport, sleep deprived traffic on the road, and long waits for taxi cabs and airport shuttles that threaten to make you miss your flights.

Check back tomorrow for Five more SXSW Tips