(Hypebot<\/a>) — An iconic conference with a largely stellar reputation, Austin\u2019s South By Southwest has reigned supreme among music conferences. Now that the brand is partly owned by P-MRC (owner of\u00a0Rolling Stone<\/em>, and\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>, among others) there has been much speculation over how the event might change.<\/p>\n

Guest post by\u00a0Bobby Owsinski<\/strong>\u00a0of\u00a0Music 3.0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Music conferences come and go over the years, but one that not only keeps going but continues to with gravitas is\u00a0South By Southwest<\/strong>.\u00a0SXSW<\/strong>\u00a0has always been thought of as not only the king of the hill for these types of gatherings, but remains respected for not being strictly a money-grab (although there\u2019s plenty of that involved). Many in the industry wondered if that approach would continue though, as reports that\u00a0P-MRC<\/strong>, the owner of\u00a0Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety,\u00a0Billboard<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Deadline<\/em>\u00a0(and an investor in\u00a0Music Business Worldwide<\/em>) has announced that it has made a strategic investment in SXSW.<\/p>\n

According\u00a0to the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>,<\/a>\u00a0P-MRC has acquired a 50% stake in SXSW LLC, and it makes many within the industry wonder if that will cause the festival\u2019s direction to change. That said, the pandemic-caused cancellation of last year\u2019s event put SXSW into an almost unwinnable position since the company had no insurance coverage. It was forced to lay off about a third of its full-time staff as a result.<\/p>\n

P-MRC, owned by\u00a0Penske Media<\/strong>, has stated that there would be no changes in management as a result of the acquisition, and as usually the case, that may be true in the beginning. What usually happens is that over time the company decides to utilize the resources from the other parts of the company in the new venture and that\u2019s when the culture changes. There\u2019s no guarantee that will happen though, or that the event will change any more than the business has already caused it to change as a result of the pandemic. The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak, and it\u2019s not going back.<\/p>\n

In recent years vendors, artists and contributors have complained about SXSW become highly commercialized and extremely pricey to attend. There\u2019s little hope that the event will return to its earlier roots at this point regardless of the P-MRC investment. The best we can hope for is that it doesn\u2019t grow beyond what Austin can currently provide (it\u2019s at the breaking point now).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Hypebot) — An iconic conference with a largely stellar reputation, Austin\u2019s South By Southwest has reigned supreme among music conferences. Now that the brand is partly owned by P-MRC (owner of\u00a0Rolling Stone, and\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter, among others) there has been much speculation over how the event might change. Guest post by\u00a0Bobby Owsinski\u00a0of\u00a0Music 3.0 Music conferences<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":83833,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_stc_notifier_status":"sent","_stc_notifier_sent_time":"2021-04-26 13:32:49","_stc_notifier_request":false,"_stc_notifier_prevent":false,"_stc_subscriber_keywords":"","_stc_subscriber_search_areas":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51,74,22,108],"tags":[2751],"class_list":["post-104538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-conference","category-industry_news","category-opinion-news","tag-sxsw"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n