Control Freak

The author (far right) at SXSW

If you have a plan and try to stick to it, you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.
The other Golden Rule of festivals is if you lose your friends, make new ones.


I am a legit type-A control freak, and 
I spent a week in March in Austin, Texas, navigating South by Southwest (SXSW), one of the largest music conferences in America.

With the exception of the Electric Palms Festival in Cabo San Lucas, this is the first “festival” I’ve attended outside of Hawaii.

While SXSW is more of a showcase or an industry mixer than a festival, there still are tens of thousands of people in rage-mode taking to the streets to navigate the 100-plus stages, in venues that range from houses to bars to huge fairgrounds and everything in between. 


This thing is nuts.
Dubbed “spring break for the music industry,” the conference loaded the city with more than 2,000 musical acts, and the more I looked through my program booklet, the more I was finding performances that I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO SEE.

Looking back through my booklet now, I probably only caught about a third of the acts I wanted. But I also discovered more than a dozen artists I had never heard of and now love.

The best possible things happen when you can just learn to let go.


The key to navigating a festival with your smartphone is, first of all, to limit your uploads. Snapchat is so addicting, but it’s best to collect all the content in airplane mode, then turn it on when you’re in a Wi-Fi safe haven with your charger plugged safely into the wall. The uploads eat your battery faster than you can put your hands in the air and say “haaaay.” Plus, we all know how annoying it is to be at a show when everyone is on their phone.


Another one of my top tips is to download the app for whatever festival you’re at. They all have one, and it’s a good way to stay updated on any last-minute add-ons after the program went to print, which happens at every festival.

If you are with a big group (which I do not recommend), the best way to keep up with everyone is Circle, a free app that is a really good local discovery network with a nice, clean interface. You can take a quick photo and post it with your location tag so your friends know what’s happening and where.


My savior at SXSW definitely was Twitter. Finding and following all of the insider SXSW tweeters, as well as record labels, management companies and bands I love was key to finding out what events were already at capacity, which ones were open and what popped up last minute.


It’s a good lesson to navigate such a huge event and come out of it feeling happy and fulfilled. I’m ready to take on the next one.

@SUPERCW

Christa Wittmier is “SUPERCW” on all social media. Find her on Snapchat, SoundCloud, Twitter, Vine and Instagram. By night, she is known as DJ SuperCW. By day, she is known as senior marketing director for Young’s Market Company of Hawaii. Her nightlife blog SuperCity runs every Wednesday on HonoluluPulse.com.