NowPublic@SXSW: Saturday Night in Austin

After a long panel-filled conference day yesterday, I retreated to my hotel for a brief rest and caught televised performances by The Killers and Spoon on the renowned live music television series Austin City Limits. The plan for later on was to head out to several of the official SXSW evening events and, as Austin is known as "The Live Music Capital of the World", and as a fantastic party city in general, I figured that the night held some real promise.

Plus, as the assumption goes, all the real business and networking gets done at the parties anyway

So my CanCon, maple leaf cohort (from BlueSponge and Elastic Entertainment) and I ventured down to the notorious 6th street where, as of next Tuesday, every bar, club, restaurant, and room big enough to set-up a mic and a guitar amp will play host to the hundreds and hundreds of bands showcasing at this year's SXSW Music fest. 

But for a Saturday night in Austin just a few days before that insanity begins, things seemed relatively tame. We grabbed a quick bite and wandered down to the frog design-sponsored Interactive Opening Party held at a large outdoor space near the Colorado River. Serving up froggy, green beer, 40 minute line-ups for drinks, and a lone fire dancer surrounded by a pack of festival badge-wearing, pic-snapping, status-updating, onlookers. With a chilly breeze blowing in from the water, we thought better of sticking it out in a long line for a plastic cup of shamrock draft. 

Our second attempt to follow the Twitterati massive led us to the much-hyped 16 Bit SXSWi afterparty which promised a "wide open Texas patio, wide open bar, 80's DJs, and new this year: 999 Eyes, an authentic human oddities freakshow". Enticing as that sounded, our cab driver assured us we would be standing in a 40 minute line-up just to get through the door. Our car crawled past the blocks-long line of hungry partiers and we made the best decision of the night -- to keep on moving.

Things finished off in a mellow and entertaining fashion at a 'Digital Showcase' event sponsored by Amoda, Austin's Museum of Digital Art. There were interactive, large screen-to-mobile games, a heated patio, and an assemblage of 16 contestants eagerly getting set to tweak knobs and blast beats in an outdoor 'laptop battle'. We checked out some hilarious early rounds of 3 minute audio assault, but our collective energy was winding down, so we left the revelers and made a winding, on-foot pilgrimage back to our respective, temporary homes.

Sunday's going to be a big day. Check out the NP@SXSW Sunday liveblog.