Tips for transportation, lodging and more at this year’s SXSW.
The annual SXSW conference and festival officially kicks off later this week, bringing hundreds of thousands of people to Austin over a ten-day period. Here are some things you need to know before you pack your bags and come to Austin.
There’s no Uber of Lyft this year. It’s kind of a long story. Basically, Uber and Lyft didn’t like the idea of city incentives for fingerprinting their drivers, so they made some bad calculus about demanding a vote of Austin citizens to approve their own ride-hailing ordinance. They spent something like $10 million promoting their referendum. To put that in perspective, it’s like 10x the amount ever spent on an election in Austin. This really upset a city that felt like it was being bullied. The referendum lost and Uber and Lyft left town.
The good news is that a bunch of alternatives came into town. The “official” ride-hailing company of SXSW is Fasten. Download the app and use referral code AN9519 and you’ll save $5 on your first ride. I also recommend downloading RideAustin, a non-profit ride-hailing service built in Austin.
Uber and Lyft used to bring in a lot of drivers from other cities to meet the demand of SXSW, so it remains to be seen how it will work this year. I recommend downloading both of these apps because you might need to switch from one to the other depending on driver availability.
(Also, if you are staying outside city limits you can still use Uber and Lyft to get downtown, just not the other way.)
You can still find a place to stay. A lot of hotels have been built in Austin in the past five years, so the housing crunch during SXSW isn’t as bad as it used to be.
That said, downtown is traditionally sold out well in advance. I checked on Hotels.com for someone coming in on Friday and leaving Monday and I found a room at the W for $1,250 per night. Just south of the river (within walking distance of downtown) you can stay at the Hyatt Regency for $1,034 per night.
The good news is that there are plenty of affordably priced hotels about 10 miles from downtown right now. There are decent options for $200-$300 per night. Just be prepared to fight for transportation downtown each day.
You might also find some last minute options on Airbnb and HomeAway.
It won’t be as hot as last year, but…
It was ridiculously warm during SXSW last year. This year, expect highs in the upper 70s to lower 80s.
On the downside, there’s a chance of rain for much of the conference.
There’s not a lot of domain programming this year.
I found a couple of domain people in sessions, but they don’t have much to do with domain names.
Also, the Sedo Domain Village is not making a return this year, so I don’t expect as many domain name companies to be in town.
Sedo:: Christoph says
Great heads-up info, thanks for putting this together!
We won’t have our Domain Village from last year, but you will see some Sedo action going on somewhere around the convention center. You’ll know it when you see it 🙂
Also, Christian Voss will be at the German Haus if you want to meet up. For more info, check out http://www.sedo.com/sxsw.