Music Tech @ SXSW: Backplane Hackathon, Music Startup Village, Gear Expo, Parties
SXSW 2012 offers a variety of ways for folks in music and tech to interact, from panels to special events, despite the fact that the Interactive and Music festivals only crossover on March 13th.
SXSW Interactive events include Backplane's Managers Hack while both the Music Startup Village and Music Gear Expo take place during SXSW Music. Not surprisingly one of the strongest bridges between the two gatherings are tech-sponsored parties.
Backplane's Managers Hack
Backplane, the company behind Lady Gaga's LittleMonsters, is holding a hackathon on March 11 called the SXSW Managers Hack:
"Hackers will have 8 hours to build and prepare for demo presentations of their ideas around the future of digital music distribution to the music industry’s leading managers. The Managers will rank and award the most promising ideas."
Judges are said to include "Scooter Braun, best known for facilitating Justin Bieber’s rise to fame; Jay Brown, President of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation; and Troy Carter, manager of Lady Gaga." Information on a live stream of the event will be available @thebackplane.
Music Startup Village
Music Startup Village takes place March 14 as an umbrella event for music tech startups with "panels, Meet Ups, lounges, pitch events and mentoring/coaching sessions." That day's SXSW Accelerator activities are included with a showcase of Music Tech Finalists.
Music Gear Expo
Though music tech is increasingly used in relation to web and mobile-related developments, the Music Gear Expo is an opportunity to check out the ongoing crossover of music and technology via musical instruments and gear. It takes place during SXSW Music in the afternoons from March 14 to 17.
SXSW Accelerator presented by Microsoft BizSpark
Judges for the music tech finals at SXSW range from musicians Michael Franti and Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses, co-founder CashMusic) to music tech xecs Jed Carlson of ReverbNation and Ian Rogers of Topspin. The music finalists will be showcasing during SXSW on Wednesday, March 14th in Austin. Details here.
Tech-Sponsored Parties
All sorts of tech-sponsored fun with music will be happening at SXSW. Here are a few parties of note:
- Sunday 11 – Mashable SXSWi House
- Tuesday 13 – BandPage HQ
- Tuesday 13 – EFF MASHUP PARTY: Music+Tech+Policy Makers Unite
- Tuesday 13 – Interactive Closing Party Presented by (mt) Media Temple
- Wednesday 14 – Hype Machine’s Hype Hotel
- Wednesday 14 – Pandora Discovery Den
- Friday 16 – Musicmetric
- Friday 16 – Sonicbids Official Party
Hypebot Features Writer Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and music industry resources at Music Biz Blogs. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
