Good morning, South by Southwesterners!
It’s time for us to sign off, and we’re already having serious FOMO. The interactive and film conference sections of the festival are winding down, so, our coverage must go with it. It’s time to pack up, say goodbye to yummy breakfast tacos, ‘grammable pop-ups, and inordinately long lines—and head back to reality.
It’s been an active week here in Austin. Filmmaker Jordan Peele started the festival off right with the premiere of his horror crowd-pleaser, Us. Progressive Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren proposed a break up of tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, and Google. Wellness and lifestyle brands like Goop made big splashes all over town. And organizations like the ACLU used the SXSW stage to encourage activism and social change.
If you’re sticking around for the rest of the festival, which runs through March 17, there’s plenty more to see. Before we head back to Quartz HQ in New York, we’ve laid out some must-sees for the remainder of South-by.
What to watch for today
Guardians of Gen Z. Actress Zoe Saldana speaks about the need for positivity on social media for younger generations this afternoon.
Self-driving semis. Alphabet’s autonomous-car project, Waymo, which has been testing semi-trucks in places like California, Arizona, and Georgia, is offering an inside look at how it builds self-driving trucks.
It’s happening again. If you need a break from official SXSW festivities, fans of the cult-TV series Twin Peaks might enjoy Mondo Gallery’s showcase of fan art by artist Greg Ruth. Today is the last day of the exhibit. It’s a little out of the way if you’re staying downtown, but worth a visit for diehards.
Space on the big screen. Is there any better combination than outer space and the movies? A panel of NASA consultants and media folks will give a talk about how they work with Hollywood to portray the final frontier as accurately—and compellingly—as possible.
Party planner: There are still more parties to hop, including 20th Century Fox’s film intermission party for the upcoming comedy Stuber at Zach Theatre (10pm), and the opening party for the music festival at The Main (6pm), followed by an “algorave,” where an artist will code techno music live (10pm).
And the rest of the festival
Here are a few things we’re sad to be missing later this week:
Looking ahead. Bozoma Saint-John, a former Apple executive and Uber chief brand officer, who now leads marketing at entertainment conglomerate Endeavor, is talking on March 13 about how to stay on top of what’s next in entertainment, fashion, sports, arts, and more.
On the block. Still to come is the festival’s first section on blockchain and cryptocurrencies, which runs from March 14-16. Joe Lubin, co-founder of cryptocurrency Ethereum and founder of blockchain company ConsenSys, is speaking in the program’s keynote (March 14), about—what else?—decentralizing the world’s systems.
The business of cannabis. Recreational marijuana isn’t legal in Austin, but that hasn’t stopped the festival from embracing the business of weed. SXSW is holding its first “cannabusiness” track this year. Sessions on cannabis and health, wellness, business, and technology, as well as how to move beyond the war on drugs, will run from March 14-16.
No sleep till South-by. Hip-hop legends Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond of the Beastie Boys are having a conversation with Amazon Music’s Nathan Brackett, in the music conference keynote on March 15.
Perfectly grilled t-bone. Legendary roots, country, and bluegrass music producer T-Bone Burnett is giving the music keynote on March 13. Burnett is best known for his work on the soundtracks of some iconic music-focused films, including O Brother Where Art Thou?, Walk the Line, Crazy Heart, and Inside Llewyn Davis.
Sometimes dead is better. A horror film opened the festival, and a horror film will close it. Pet Sematary, the second adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, premieres at the Paramount on March 17 as the film festival’s final hurrah.
Then, there are the more than 2,000 musical acts that are descending on SXSW for the music festival.
What everyone is talking about
Tech backlash. There were no big tech launches—like Twitter in 2008 or Foursquare in 2009—at this year’s festival. Instead, a mistrust of technology seeped into many of the week’s events. Elizabeth Warren ignited antitrust chatter around big tech, and sessions touched on privacy, security, and the ethics of technology. The tone was markedly different from this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, a trade show, where it was largely business as usual with gadgets that surrounded people with artificial intelligence.
Women in film. Many of the best films at this year’s SXSW were either directed by or starring women. Lupita Nyong’o gave the performance of the festival as the lead in Jordan Peele’s Us. Booksmart, Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, won over festival-goers as the biggest (and best) surprise of the week (more on that below). And Charlize Theron brought the house down playing a presidential candidate in Long Shot.
The winners
Amazon’s apocalypse. Angels and demons, singing nuns, adorable hellhounds, rowdy witch hunters, and other characters from Amazon’s upcoming mini-series Good Omens, a fantasy about the end of the world, roamed the streets of Austin all week. Ads for the series plastered shuttles around town. People donned Good Omens umbrellas in rain and shine. And the pop-up for the show, the Garden of Earthly Delights, was an Instagrammable hangout spot, which hosted events where celebs like Jon Hamm, David Tennant, Michael Sheen—who all star in the show—and author Neil Gaiman were spotted. A woman overheard on Rainey Street summed it up best: “No, I don’t know what it is, but they have puppies and Jon Hamm, so I’m going.”
Scooter invasion. From the moment festival-goers stepped foot in downtown Austin, scooters were the talk of the town. They littered most street corners and made the long distances between festival events, weekend traffic, and street closures more manageable. While Uber’s Jump was the official scooter brand of SXSW, two-wheelers from Lime, Bird, Spin, and Lyft were also everywhere.
Pete Buttigieg, the 37 year-old South Bend, Indiana Mayor, is a presidential long-shot who deserves recognition for making the most of SXSW as a platform for his campaign. (Fitting for the only millennial in the race.) His goal is to raise enough small donations and name recognition to appear on televised debates later in the election cycle. A non-stop series of media appearances over the weekend culminated in a Sunday-night CNN town hall that left audiences and political handicappers impressed with his authenticity. The brand is strong!
Olivia Wilde, Booksmart, and the Feldstein siblings. Peele’s Us was the biggest movie of the festival, but Olivia Wilde’s fantastic directorial debut was the surprise of the film festival. Critics were ecstatic coming out of Sunday’s premiere—some hailed it as an instant “masterpiece” that belongs in the same conversation with high-school coming-of-age comedies like Dazed and Confused, The Breakfast Club, and Superbad. Wilde stole the show again with a passionate keynote Monday about her experience in Hollywood. Booksmart star Beanie Feldstein won over hearts on the red carpet and during a panel for the film, while her brother, actor Jonah Hill, appeared in Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum.
Our other favorite pop-ups
Cozy vibes. The exhibit hall at the Austin Convention Center is a stress-inducing sea of apps, nations, conglomerates, and brands attempting to activate you. Best in show goes to Calm, the sleep and meditation app. It brought a rescued 12 year-old sloth all the way from its home in San Antonio for a booth appearance. The rainforest creature explored a wooden trellis and munched on vegetable treats as conference-goers snapped and ‘grammed with joy. One concerned visitor asked the sloth’s caretaker if the animal was uncomfortable with all the attention. No, came the reply–if she were upset, her hair would stand on end and she would make chuffing noises. (Same.) We were assured the sloth, now dangling upside down, was very calm indeed.
Wow. Sony’s pop-up experience, dubbed the Wow studio, was a highlight for many festival-goers Quartz spoke with. The Japanese tech company’s space, directly across from the convention center, had games including an interactive version of darts, a GIF station, a pitch-black cave that encouraged people to make music without the use of sight, a collection of robots that invented their own language (and talked to each other about you), as well as the robotic dog, Aibo.
Harvest HQ. Scotts Miracle Gro’s house on Rainey Street, which promoted gardening, was surprisingly poppin’. It had piles of guac, a live band, and a photobooth—and was packed to the brim nearly every time we passed by.
Quartz’s SXSW by the numbers
Quartz reporters Adam, Ashley, and Tim pounded the pavements of Austin over the last week to experience all that SXSW had to offer. Here’s a by-the-numbers recap of their adventures:
Brand experiences and pop-ups visited: 27
Miles walked: 57.4
Uber and Lyft rides taken: 30
Tacos eaten: 19
Panels watched: 13
Wristbands obtained: 8
Films screened: 8
Presidential candidates encountered: 7
Animals seen: 5 dogs petted, 2 horses, 1 sloth, a scary number of birds, and snake dude on Rainey Street.
Quartz eats
Ashley, who set out to sample as many tacos as possible during her stay in Austin, capped off the trip with migas breakfast tacos by Tamale House from the UberEats window on East 6th Street. Uber is an official sponsor of the festival and is giving away free snacks at the window through March 16, to anyone with the UberEats app downloaded on their phones.
Adam finally tried Little Lucy’s mini donuts on Rainey Street. There were no regrets.
News from around the world
US diplomats walked out of Venezuela. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the US embassy in Caracas would pull its last remaining diplomatic staff from the country. The move is the latest escalation between the US, which backs opposition leader’s Juan Guaidó claim to power, and president Nicolás Maduro.
Volkswagen revved up its earnings. The German carmaker beat expectations and posted a 6% rise in net profit for 2018. Volkswagen has faced hefty charges over the “dieselgate” scandal in which it was caught cheating on emissions tests.
The UN is investigating possible violations of North Korea sanctions. About 20 countries are under scrutiny for alleged actions including nuclear procurement in China and arms brokering in Syria.
Matters of debate
Automation isn’t the problem—capitalism is. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says we could be more excited about robotic labor if unemployment wasn’t so financially devastating.
We should switch to quantum computing. It’s a crucial tool to combat the threat of ever-growing energy use by regular computers.
Idealized visions of fatherhood can mask abuse. Deep-seated cultural narratives associate having control over others with being a “good” dad.
Surprising discoveries
New Zealand is using barking drones to herd sheep. But during wet weather, dogs are still the best.
A high-school teacher won $10,000 for reading the fine print. A travel insurance company buried the prize to encourage customers to pay attention.
“This is a totally new one for us.” The crew of a flight destined for Kuala Lumpur negotiated with air-traffic control to return to Jeddah when a passenger realized shortly after take-off that she forgot to bring her baby on board.
Our best wishes for an inspiring rest of the festival in Austin. Please send any news, tips, and highlights to Adam, Ashley, and Tim. The best way to keep up with news while you’re on the go this week is the Quartz app for iPhone and Android.