Saying 'goodbye' to SXSW Music

All Songs Considered

NPR

Music

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 March 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

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Summary

We look at how and why SXSW, once the world's largest music festival, is being scaled back to a shell of itself, what was so special about it, and what the shift means for artists and the industry.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Let's just do a show where we all try to remember all the names we've forgotten and the memories we've made.
0:07.3	That show is called My Life. Hello.
0:09.5	Yeah, exactly.
0:16.6	So this past week we received what I think counts as pretty big news in our world, staggering
0:22.1	news really. And even I would go as far as to say unthinkable news in a lot of ways. And that is
0:29.1	that the South by Southwest Music Festival is all but going away. And I say all but going away because
0:36.8	technically it still exists, but starting next
0:39.9	year, organizers are cutting it so much that I think it's safe to say that it'll kind of just be
0:46.0	a shell of itself and what it used to be. Anne Power, Stephen Thompson both here to talk about this.
0:53.3	I think, Ann, you and I actually met for the first time at South by Southwest.
0:56.8	I met all of you at South by Southwest.
0:58.5	I'm pretty sure that's true.
0:59.1	Yeah, I remember very vividly the walking into a room and you and Bob Boyland and who else.
1:07.0	I think Anya Grunman was there.
1:08.9	Yeah.
1:09.5	Wasn't Carrie Brownstein there too?
1:11.2	Yeah.
1:11.7	I was like, oh my goodness, the glamorous.
1:14.0	Look at these glamorous NPR people.
1:16.4	I was so impressed.
1:17.5	I thought the same thing.
1:18.4	Look at us.
	...

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