Our team mostly survived this year’s South by Southwest Interactive conference intact, with the main casualties being our voices and business card inventory. The Awesomest Journalism Party. Ever. VII edition was a smashing success, and the Alley contingent was proud to provide two crucial contributions — the branding design and drink tickets. Based on the popularity of the latter, event attendees appreciated our work tremendously!
The @alleydigital slide for the awesomest journalism party #tajpe pic.twitter.com/X6YGAsgUnk
— Megan McCarthy (@Megan) March 12, 2017
The city of Austin itself was a hospitable host outside of our event. While a very rainy Saturday kept most attendees inside the convention center, there were still long lines for attractions like HBO’s Escape the Room event and AMC’s Breaking Bad-inspired Los Pollos Hermanos pop-up restaurant.
Yep, another normal day for this guy. #SXSW Featuring King @potatomaster pic.twitter.com/95uWZXkF5z
— Alley (@alleyco) March 12, 2017
(For the record, our group escaped all of the rooms with ample time to spare, and Los Pollos Hermanos only served curly fries with no extra seasoning.)
#LPHisHiring @TomHarrigan are pivoting careers #sxsw pic.twitter.com/2qABmzrkJA
— potatomaster (@potatomaster) March 11, 2017
The conference’s journalism track this year was heavily influenced by the political climate, and its speakers reflected that. Panels names included Covering POTUS: A Conversation with the Failing NYT, From Trump to Trolls: How Muslim Media Fights Back, Good Night & Good Luck: Media in Election Years, and Is Big Data Destroying the US Political System? Appropriately, the takeaways to each of these seemed to be: “Stay tuned.” For more about this year’s panels, check out Wired and The Verge for their roundups.
Thanks to everyone who attended and we look forward to meeting more awesome journalists next year.