The South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) has begun: The startup, music, film, and creative festival opened its doors yesterday. We're on-site and will be giving you daily insights into the festival from the Texas capital of Austin.
When people talk about SXSW, it often sounds like "Burning Man" for techies and creatives: geeks and visionaries everywhere you look. The first impression is different: Friday morning, the first day of SXSW, the streets of Austin still seem quite relaxed. Throughout the day, the flow of pedestrians swells, and on the streets, even away from the convention center, you can increasingly hear snatches of talk about events in the coming days. Overall, Austin, a city with just under a million inhabitants, is expecting more than 100,000 visitors.
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Three in One
But what is it all about? The "SXSW Conference and Festivals"—the somewhat cumbersome full name of the nine-day event—brings together three thematic branches: "Interactive" focuses on entrepreneurship, startups, tech, internet politics, and culture. There's also the music section, with which the festival began in 1987, and the film section. For the first time, all events are taking place on the same days. Yesterday, for example, Terrance Malick's new film "Song to Song" celebrated its world premiere in Austin—with (the real) Ryan Gosling and Michael Fassbender on the red carpet. SXSW thus combines three conferences and festivals.
The Gosling has landed. #SXSW #SXSW2017 pic.twitter.com/Kb4j04hkKO
— RSVPATX.com Parties & Events during SXSW 2025 (@RSVPATX) March 11, 2017
“Keep Austin weird”
The festival and its atmosphere are closely linked to the city of Austin. Under the motto "Keep Austin weird," the Texas capital demonstrates its self-image as a progressive hub in a rather conservative state.
The local startup scene seems to feel comfortable with the city's progressive image. Ben Thoma, who hosts the local events of the networking breakfast series CreativeMornings, sums it up:
“Austin is a town where collaboration trumps competition.”
In other words: friendly “weirdness” trumps pure profit-seeking.
The open-minded SXSW spirit is also what companies and stakeholders seek: The event is considered an excellent place to bring new ideas to the public. For example, Twitter wasn't launched at SXSW in 2007, as is often rumored, but it gained the necessary momentum after its presentation there. It's therefore not really surprising that the Chinese electric car manufacturer NIO is presenting its concept car Eve for the first time at SXSW.
The car's impressive design is being developed in the Munich office. Additional components come from San Jose, Shanghai, and London. NIO's US CEO Padmasree Warrior says at the presentation:
“We are a global startup.”
“Servus meets Howdy” — that’s what happens in the Bavarian Startup Village
The startup scene in Munich and Bavaria is own events in the German House present. A whole delegation of startup founders and stakeholders from the ecosystem has also rented several houses just outside the city center. We also report on the "Bavarian Startup Village" out of.
In daily videos, the Plant1 Bavarian startups traveling with us will be presenting their videos at the Bavarian Startup Village. Of course, we'd love to share these videos. Enjoy!
https://www.facebook.com/werk1muenchen/videos/vb.154417924705456/788267921320450/?type=3&theater
