abc.net.au/news/sxsw-sydney-origins-texas-music-gaming-film-screen-festival/101994592When Nick Barbaro got together with a few friends to launch SXSW, he could not have anticipated what it would grow into.
The NMS crew had to back out of the event, but the first SXSW went ahead in Austin, Texas, the following year. It was 1987 and back then the focus was music. "Artists like Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar, Katy Perry, Post Malone, filmmakers Barry Jenkins, Lee Daniels, tech industry icons Daniel Ek – Spotify and Stewart Butterfield – founder of Slack, and companies like Siri and Twitter were all showcased at SXSW long before they were household names," said Darin Klein, SXSW Partner and Executive Vice President at a Sydney news conference.
"And they showed up anyway and walked around and sang acapella to basically anybody who cared to listen to them around the softball field.Tech giants have also got their start at SXSW. Before the world knew about Facebook, its founder knew about SXSW and according to Barbaro, that's where Mark Zuckerberg chose to launch.