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South by Southwest is changing. The festival has been shortened to 7 days. There is no dedicated music weekend. The convention center is being renovated and won’t be finished for 3 years. So what will music at SXSW 2026 look like? Brian Hobbs, VP of Music at SXSW, sits down to talk about the future of the festival.

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The full transcript of this episode of Pause/Play is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

Miles Bloxson: I’m Miles Bloxson

Elizabeth McQueen: And I’m Elizabeth McQueen, and you’re listening to Pauses play the podcast about live music, why it matters, and what.

You know, miles, we have talked about South by Southwest a lot on this podcast

Miles Bloxson: we have. I mean, our very first episode ever was about how the shutdown of South by Southwest due to COVID affected us here in the Austin music scene.

Elizabeth McQueen: Yeah. I mean, for Austinites, that felt like. The start of the pandemic. And then we talked about what it was like when South by Southwest came back as an in-person event in 2022.

Miles Bloxson: Yeah. And last season we looked at the history of South by Southwest and how it’s grown from a small regional music conference to a conference that brings people from all over the world in the music, tech, film, and education sectors to Austin every single march. And we talked about how now. South by Southwest is partially owned by Penske Media Group, who also [00:01:00] owns Variety Billboard and Rolling Stones.

Elizabeth McQueen: That would be a good episode to listen to either before or after you listen to this one, because in this episode we’re gonna be talking about the future of South by Southwest. The festival’s changed a lot over the years, and right now it’s in the middle of another transition. After the festival ended, this past March, south by Southwest, made an announcement that it was shortening the festival from 10 days to seven.

Miles Bloxson: It will now run from Thursday, March 12th to Wednesday, March 18th.

Elizabeth McQueen: Yeah, I mean, historically the different parts of the festival ran at different times. The festival would start on a Thursday, and the first weekend was mostly interactive in film, and then interactive would wind down on the following Monday.

The music festival would start up on Tuesday, and then music and film would run through the following weekend.

Miles Bloxson: So when this news hit, there was a lot of talk about this weekend, which had been music focused going away. Some outlets were asking whether or not this meant that South by Southwest music [00:02:00] was essentially dead.

Elizabeth McQueen: I mean, music was the whole reason the festival started in the first place, right? It made sense that people were freaking out

Miles Bloxson: in this new model, music, film, and tv and what used to be called Interactive. They’re calling it innovation now. All those panels and events will be running at the same time.

Elizabeth McQueen: Yeah.

It’s very everything everywhere. All at once.

Miles Bloxson: Yeah. And the music part of this festival will actually be seven days rather than six.

Elizabeth McQueen: South by Southwest has said that this change came about, at least in part because our convention center is being renovated. Lots of panels and daytime activities at the festival took place there, and right now the old building has been demolished and the new one won’t be ready for at least three years.

Miles Bloxson: So that’s what we know, but we wanted to talk to someone from the festival who could help us get a clearer picture of why the festival made these changes and what it might look like. So we decided to sit down with Brian.

Brian Hobbs: I’m [00:03:00] Brian Hobbs. I’m the VP of Music at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

Elizabeth McQueen: Brian actually goes by B. Hobbs or just Hobbes, just so you know.

And how long have you been working for South by Southwest?

Brian Hobbs: I’m going on 13 years now.

Elizabeth McQueen: And. Did you attend South by Southwest before you started working for them?

Brian Hobbs: I did. Um, my first time going to South by Southwest was 2005 when, uh, Matt Gonzalo was programming all of the hip hop and they had him running the back room on Riverside, which is now Emo’s of course.

And I went one night and then ended up going the next three nights ’cause it was one of the most magical experiences I had ever had.

Elizabeth McQueen: Wait a second. They had a hip hop showcase at the back room.

Brian Hobbs: Oh, yeah.

Elizabeth McQueen: Which was like a metal club, right? Correct. Uh, can you just, I’m sorry, I just have to ask That’s okay.

Can you just tell me a little bit about what the vibe was?

Brian Hobbs: Uh, the vibes were immaculate. I think Matt had did such a [00:04:00] good job of getting. The hip hop community excited about South by Southwest ’cause it wasn’t known as a destination event for hip hop. And that first year that I went, I remember it was like Chameleon Air was the headliner and I went to the bar to get a drink.

And Rayquan from Wu-Tang was just chilling at the bar, also getting a drink. And I’m like. What, where am I even at right now?

Miles Bloxson: Not in Austin.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah, I had, I mean I had, you know, dreams and delusions of being involved in the music scene at that point, but just had no idea how to do it. So I’m just in there watching all this happen and trying to just figure out like, how did, how did this random show come together?

’cause the lineup was so crazy, but it worked so well. And then going to the bar and seeing. You know, Rayquan chilling, watching a Texas hip hop showcase at South by Southwest. I was just like, alright, I’m at the right place. ’cause this is like my dream is [00:05:00] actually happening right now.

Miles Bloxson: Do you remember who else performed that night?

Brian Hobbs: Uh, I don’t remember. ’cause I went like. Three nights in a row. So it’s now kind of like all mashed together as like one experience. But I remember it was Chamillionaire Devon, the dude Bunbee whenever, um, he was doing his group, the Middle Fingers. So it was Bunbee and Middle Fingers. Um, grit Boys, Paul Wall.

Dang. I can’t remember who else was. The people’s

Miles Bloxson: champ was there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was. I love that.

Brian Hobbs: And it was like, we went, I wanna say it was like a $5 cover if you didn’t have a, a wristband or a badge. And I was like, I can’t believe I just paid $5 for like one of the most fun nights of my life.

So it was right back there the next night.

Elizabeth McQueen: So you were at that showcase and you’re like, oh my. This is what I wanna do. And then you started working for South by Southwest.

Brian Hobbs: Right.

Elizabeth McQueen: And when did you start working for South by Southwest?

Brian Hobbs: I got hired November, 2012.

Elizabeth McQueen: Okay. And what was the festival like when you started working for South by Southwest?

Could you describe to people what Yeah,

Brian Hobbs: [00:06:00] that was like the peak of the, I mean, what I think a lot of people would consider Peak South by Southwest for, you know, the general public that was when. All I had to do was email somebody and ask ’em like, what do you want to do this year? ’cause everybody wanted to be here.

It was, uh, it was not easy. It was, you know, the, the job was chaotic, but there was no convincing people to come to South by Southwest in 20 12, 20 13. ’cause. Everybody wanted to be there and it was still pretty new and fresh for the, the hip hop community at that time too, so that made it even easier for me.

I’m sure some of my coworkers were looking at me like, oh my God, all this guy has to do is email any rapper’s manager agent on the planet and they all want to be here and they. Their job was way different than that. ’cause it wasn’t as new for a lot of other genres at that time.

Elizabeth McQueen: And for a long time, up until really recently, you were in charge of the hip hop [00:07:00] portion of the music festival.

Brian Hobbs: Oh yeah. I’m, I mean, I’m never gonna give that up like they’ll have to, you know. I don’t know what kind of machinery they would have to use to pry that outta my hands. But um, yes, I’ve always been the hip hop guy at South by, since I started. And I mean, that’s just what I am 24 hours a day anyway, so I don’t, I can’t change doing that.

But now, yes, I have other responsibilities also. So I’ll be bringing in somebody to help me on that side.

Miles Bloxson: How has the music part of the festival changed since you first started going?

Brian Hobbs: Well, when I first started going, I. I’ll, I’ll just comment on what I was going to see. Back then, I was just strictly going to the hip hop shows, and I remember the first two years I went, everything was kind of relegated to the back room on Riverside, so it wasn’t even in the main footprint.

There would’ve been some shows, but it, the stuff I was interested in was all happening in one venue for three or four nights. So I [00:08:00] was just at this one spot, and then I remember it must’ve been either. 2007 or 2008, we, me and my friends ventured into like downtown, downtown for it and we’re like, oh, this is what’s going on out here.

This is crazy. And you know, that was whenever I think the brands were first catching on and there were some, you know, pretty, I think, I think. At one point, like Metallica did Stubbs and that was like the most mind blowing thing was like, oh my God, a a stadium act is playing, you know, the, one of the most historic venues in Texas and holds 2000 people.

This is like, I can’t believe this is what they’re doing out here. This is the most fun event I’ve ever seen in my life. It was just like being in Disneyland for a young music nerd.

Elizabeth McQueen: And then how does that all compare to kind of how South by Southwest has looked recently, especially post pandemic?

Brian Hobbs: Yeah, I mean it’s, it’s different ’cause you know, once you have a night where, you know, in 2014 we had a night [00:09:00] when Kendrick Lady Gaga, Kanye, Jay.

And there was some, oh, Tyler, the creator, were literally all performing at the same time in different rooms. Like where, where do you go from there? So once you hit that point, it kind of naturally pulls back a little bit. And then, you know, the, the pandemic did a snow favor. So coming back outta the pandemic, you know, the, I think that the, um.

The independent artists and the, you know, the talent discovery aspect of Side By Southwest, that’s never changed and that’s never going to change. The thing that has changed though is that a lot of companies just, they’re not spending money on experiential stuff right now. And I think that even though it was so long ago, I think the pandemic really like.

Changed how companies advertise and spend money. So where at one point they would’ve said, let’s spend our whole year’s budget doing this event at South by Southwest that people are gonna talk about forever to, you know, let’s [00:10:00] do influencer marketing campaigns. And you know, everybody lives their whole life off the palm of their hand right now on their phone.

So that’s where a lot of the money is going instead of, you know. Events that you go to in person. I feel like there’s a shift coming from a lot of talks that we’ve been having lately, and I think that a lot of the companies are hopeful for that too. So I think things are gonna start slowly turning back in that other direction where people actually do want to go outside and be around other people again.

So I’m, I’m, I’m very hopeful for that.

Miles Bloxson: What does that shift include when you’re having these conversations? What are, what are people talking about?

Brian Hobbs: Uh, just that saying like, I think there could be budget for this, this year when there hasn’t been budget in previous years, because. They were just doing online marketing instead of going outside.

But I mean, almost every meeting that I’ve been in in the past 11 years, somebody has mentioned the gigantic Doritos vending machine. [00:11:00] What? And it used to be like. With an eye roll and a little bit of disgust and now it’s with like a nostalgia of like, oh man, remember whenever the like, yeah, duh. I remember it.

Everybody’s mentioned it to me in every meeting, almost my entire career. So look what like Doritos absolutely got the bang for their buck in that situation. ’cause. People are still talking about it to this day. Would they have got the same bang for their buck paying, uh, you know, a, a TikTok influencer to make a silly video about Doritos chips?

No, absolutely not. So hopefully they’re starting to realize that doing creative events is a better way to spend money than just trying to. Put something in front of a kid’s face on their phone.

Miles Bloxson: Yeah. It’s a lot more memorable. Absolutely. ’cause I remember like, oh, there’s Spotify was over here and Twitter was over here.

Yep. And I remember Fader Fort being a big thing. You know, there was all these different experiences that you counted on every year. And now when I go, I don’t, [00:12:00] I, I don’t see those same brands there. Yeah.

Brian Hobbs: I think some of it is also like, you just can’t do the same thing every single year. Like no brand is gonna do that, but.

Every single one of those people that you just mentioned, have we, we’ve had conversations with all of them within the past month, and I can’t say if anything’s for sure gonna happen from it, but some of them were due to us reaching out and some of ’em are due to them reaching out. So the interest is absolutely there.

I think the funding is always going to be the hurdle. And of course, if you were at South by Southwest 10 years ago. With an extremely impactful event. You don’t want to come back now and under deliver. So everybody wants to make sure that they’re in a position where they can come back and make the same splash they did a decade ago when they come back.

But it feels like the, the, you know, obviously the biggest change that has been made at South by Southwest is condensing the event from 10 days to seven days, [00:13:00] and then having all of our verticals run concurrently for the first time ever. Me personally, I think this is something that should have been done long ago, but better late than never.

And it seems like that’s really firing people up about South by again, knowing that like, oh wow. All these people who come for the tech and innovation side of South by who generally would leave on Monday when music starts, they’ll be in town the whole time during music and they get to experience what’s really the heartbeat of.

South by Southwest, which is the music that they’ve never got to experience before. Hmm.

Elizabeth McQueen: Yeah. And we were just gonna ask about that and I, I was wondering if you could tell the audience just for people who don’t know, like what verticals are. Yeah. Um, so, so yeah, there’s a change. There was a big announcement at right after South By Ended this year.

Right. That there was gonna be a change. They’re getting rid of the weekend that was dedicated to the music festival. So can you tell people what this. Condensed festival like. Yeah.

Brian Hobbs: Um, [00:14:00] you know, first on that, I think that that was a little bit of a misconception also, is that there was a weekend that was just dedicated to music.

’cause film and music have always happened. Yeah. Film

Elizabeth McQueen: and music always concurrently so

Brian Hobbs: that it wasn’t like nothing’s being taken away from music. Were actually gaining a day. So when I say verticals, I mean music is a vertical film and TV is a vertical. Comedy’s a vertical, and what had always been known as interactive, which will be known as innovation moving forward.

The tech part of South By that’s also a vertical too. So if you come and buy. A badge for innovation interactive. And you’re there on, you know, for your company and you’re only there for Friday, and then start on Friday historically, and then leave on Sunday. You miss all of the music stuff. Now they’ll be in town for longer ’cause they’re getting seven days instead of four.

Music’s getting seven days instead of six. So we are actually expanding. Whenever the [00:15:00] word first came out, it was like music’s dead. Music’s gone away at South by like, and that’s what I thought. Wait, what? Actually, the opposite is true. We are gaining an entire night of music programming that we haven’t had before.

And you know, when I started we, we were doing a few shows ’cause generally South by. Would start on Thursday and then go through the next Saturday When I first started, music. Slowly kicked off on Tuesday, two, three shows here and there, and then it really ramped up on Wednesday through Saturday. Over the years, we’ve started doing more stuff on Tuesday.

Then we started doing a few shows on Monday to see what it would be like. Now we. You know, the past few years, we’ve done a bunch of shows on Monday, it’s been great. So we’ve actually been expanding this whole time. It just hasn’t necessarily felt like it because those big names haven’t been there. So people are like, oh, you know, south by music’s, you know, you, you can only make maybe 30% of people [00:16:00] happy at one time.

Because you know, half, half the people think South by only cares about the big liner superstars. And then the other half of the people hate big headliner superstars and they only wanna see, you know, their next favorite band for the first time at South By. So we try to do our best to appeal to everybody, but you know, you can only make a little bit of, I’m happy at once.

Elizabeth McQueen: Well, what brought this change on? Like, you’ve kind of been working towards a more integrated festival, but what brought on the change of condensing those days? I think what

Brian Hobbs: probably. Is the, the biggest, um, driver of that would be the convention center coming down. So they’re rebuilding the convention center and if you don’t have that home base where all of the, um, the conference can take place at, we’re gonna be using tons of different hotel spaces downtown for that.

And it just, I think, you know, this is a decision that happened. In a, a boardroom that I wasn’t part of. So I’m, I’m reacting to it the same way everybody else is [00:17:00] reacting to it, but I think it was a great decision to go from 10 days to seven days. Like 10 days is a really long time to do anything, especially if you’re traveling from, you know, all over the world to come here.

10 days is a long, and I know how tired I am after six nights of music. I can’t imagine what it would be like for somebody who did 10 full days. And there are people who come in on day one and stay all the way through the end. I’m like, man, y’all are soldiers. ’cause I couldn’t do that many days. I, my, my, my body is destroyed by the last night.

Miles Bloxson: Yeah. And it’s kind of hard to explain too, for me to people that have never been to South by Yep. Like how it works. Were, were verticals also referred to as tracks before? Like, like tracks, like this

Brian Hobbs: is, yes, there are track. Yeah. That’s also. It is super confusing. Um, there are tracks that are part of our conference, that’s where the, the word track is used.

So there’s, I think at one point there was like 30 something [00:18:00] different conference tracks, and now this year it’s gonna be down to I think 15. And another great decision, in my opinion, because spreading yourself too thin, doing too many things like. It, it gives a chance for like better quality over quantity curation instead of just, we’re just booking everything.

And that’s how it felt at one point. Like even especially on the music side, it was like, if there’s a venue that’s available, I’m booking it. Like I don’t care, gimme that. I got enough rappers to fill it. I’m doing it. And now it’s kind of like that wasn’t the best decision.

Miles Bloxson: Can you explain the difference between what a vertical is versus a track?

Brian Hobbs: I think a vertical would be like the, the bigger, more overall thing. So if, if, um, you know, tech innovation is a vertical, but then inside that there would be tracks of, I. Ai there would be tracks for, I, I don’t work in that department, so I don’t necessarily know every [00:19:00] single track, but it would, that would be like the, the individual sections under the, the innovation umbrella would be the conference tracks.

Yeah.

Elizabeth McQueen: And you were with South by Southwest for a long time, so you, you, and you started during like peak music South by Southwest. But I noticed as someone who did, because I moved here in 2000 and like played South by Southwest as an artist for a really long time. It used to be that there was a lot going on during the music part and then.

Especially after the pandemic, it was like, and even a little before the pandemic, it felt like the city emptied out a little bit when it was just music. I mean, did you feel that?

Brian Hobbs: Yeah, I mean, I’ve, I’ve joked before that you could stand outside the convention center on Monday and watch the money leave town, and it was because that’s who, you know, the, the tech industry is who was bringing the money in after a certain point.

And I think the music industry. Yeah, they’ve been in a weird place, you know, after you couldn’t sell CDs [00:20:00] anymore. And then before streaming was really generating a lot of money. There was some, you know, people operating on some pretty thin margins at that point. So I think they came, they did everything that they could, but that tech mon, you know, what can compare to that?

Miles Bloxson: Yeah, totally. Do you feel like there’s some sort of like competition between like the tech and the music, or do what do you think are the most prominent things now? Because as a, as a person that goes, it seems like it’s just changed so much.

Brian Hobbs: It, I mean, it has, and I think that that’s, you know, it, that’s a really cool thing about South by Southwest.

You know, whenever I started it kind of felt like the music department were the kings of the castle at work and you know, we kind of had the run of the place and everybody. You know, wanted to be in the music department. And then the last few years it’s definitely been the film and TV department. Like they’re just killing it every year.

And I look at them now, like, oh man, look at them. They’re, they just got every movie studio wants to be here and every actor and they wanna do all these premiere. Oh my God. It’s like [00:21:00] a little bit of jealousy, but then also like super proud of them because I know that all of them work incredibly hard and they’re all super cool too.

So like. But there’s also a little bit of that like, damn, I wish the record labels would invest in this like the music or the movie studios do. So it’s

Miles Bloxson: more of like an internal competition.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah, and I wouldn’t even call it competition as much as just like, that’s just me personally. ’cause I’ve been here long enough to remember when music was in that place, and now I mean.

If you just take a look, the last few years, I mean we had the film that won, you know, the, the Oscar for the film of the year. It premiered at South by Southwest and shouted out South by Southwest on stage during their acceptance speech. And that was, you know, even for me who had absolutely nothing to do with, it was a huge point of pride of like, that happened in my building.

Elizabeth McQueen: Yeah. Oh, that is really cool actually. Yeah. So. Could you tell people Now the music festival’s gonna be running seven days, correct? Rather than [00:22:00] six. It’s gonna be running at the same time as all the other festivals. Yep. Can you tell people kind of what that is gonna look like? I mean, I know you guys are still.

Putting it together. Oh yeah. I would guess, but, or what you envision it to be.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah. Um, I mean, my absolute dream is to find the sweet spot between 2014 and 2025. Like, I don’t know how long it’s gonna take us to get there, but that’s the end goal. I don’t want to go back to 2014 as much as some people loved it.

It was, it was too, it was a circus. It was too much. It got. Like past like the fun danger to like actual danger. So I don’t really want to go back to 2014, but I would love to have a little bit of that 2014 like chaos and the big shiny names that everybody wants to see, but have that mixed with. We’re never gonna go away from talent discovery as our number one goal.

Like we always want to be the place [00:23:00] that you saw. You know, when you go to another festival like, you know, a big open field festival, you want to be able to say, I saw them at South by Southwest in a room with 150 other people. When you’re talking about the headliner who’s now playing in front of a hundred thousand people, like that’s our goal is for people to be able to say that.

Elizabeth McQueen: Yeah, the Billie Eilish effect. That

Miles Bloxson: sounds really, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah.

Miles Bloxson: As you said in 2014, it was a little crazy. Y’all had like 2200 bands that played South by Southwest, and then last year that number was a little over a thousand. How many bands do you expect that will play like in 2026 in this upcoming year?

Brian Hobbs: About a thousand. That’s our sweet spot right there. Like I said before, there was a time where it was just like, if you’re gonna gimme the space, I’m gonna program this show and. I don’t think that that was sustainable, and I don’t think it was smart. I think it was just fun. But now the shows are way more intentional and I think the bands are gonna get more out of coming to [00:24:00] South by Southwest if they’re one of a thousand instead of one of 2200.

There’s just way more reasons to be more intentional with our booking instead of just, I kind of call it like be a a sniper rifle instead of a machine gun. You don’t need to, to mow everything down and book every venue and like just do what you know is going to be good.

Elizabeth McQueen: And how do you choose bands for South by Southwest?

Can, is there any secret sauce like, I

Brian Hobbs: mean it. There really isn’t because there’s so many different ways and things that we look for. One thing that I always, me personally, that I look for is I want to see there’s so many artists that don’t have any visual evidence that they’ve ever performed on a live stage.

In their entire career, like make sure you got videos of you performing live on your YouTube or your social media, please, because why would you get invited to a music festival if we don’t know? Like your [00:25:00] music could sound great. Your numbers could be solid, your fan engagement could be really good. But if you’ve never performed or we don’t know if you’ve ever performed, like, just give us some evidence of that please.

And there’ll be bands that we’ll have to reach out to. They’ll apply and be like, Hey, this is great and we’re really interested, but can we please see a video of you performing? Because that’s, you gotta know that they can deliver once they get on the stage. ’cause not everybody can do that. And you know, there’s so many things that you can fake too.

And so one thing that we always look for is like actual fan engagement. Not, you know, anybody can post, you know, four fire emojis under a song, but are the fans actually engaged with it? Yeah.

Miles Bloxson: How many applications would you say you get or how many submissions?

Brian Hobbs: I mean, if you

Miles Bloxson: had to estimate, I know that

Brian Hobbs: 7,500 or so sometimes more than that.

It’s, uh, I mean at the most it was definitely over 10,000, but I would, I [00:26:00] would say a safe estimate every year is about 7,500. And I think there’s a misconception around how many people actually work in this department and people think that it’s like, you know, some big live nation machine with 150 people in the department booking these shows.

No, it was like eight or nine of us and we’ve listened to and evaluate. Every single application that comes in,

Miles Bloxson: that’s like a thousand.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah. It’s a lot of work

Miles Bloxson: groups. Are artists a person?

Brian Hobbs: It’s a lot of work and, but it’s the, it is also the right thing to do. But don’t get me wrong, I mean, sometimes you can look at an application and be like, yeah, they spent 30 seconds on this, so I’m gonna spend 30 seconds on it too.

’cause they obviously don’t want it bad. But most of our applications are filled out exactly how they need to be filled out and we. Literally, we read every bio, we click every link. It’s tedious, but it’s the right thing to do, and [00:27:00] it’s a lot

Elizabeth McQueen: coming up. After the break, we’ll hear more from Bee Hobbes about the future of South by Southwest.

Miles Bloxson: Welcome back to Pauses. Play the podcast about live music, why it matters, and what comes next. Today we’re talking to Bee Hobbs, VP of Music at South by Southwest, about the festival and what it might look like in 2026.

Elizabeth McQueen: So we’ve been talking about like. When we say festival, like you said, it’s not an open field festival, like ACL fest.

So there are like music showcases, but there’s also this conference part of South by Southwest. Mm-hmm. Um, that, like you talked about a little bit, but I thought we could talk a little more about, is gonna be really different ’cause we’re not gonna have a convention center this year. Correct. So there’s gonna be, there’s gonna be panel discussions and everything What.

How is that gonna look like for the people who are at South by Southwest?

Brian Hobbs: Yeah. Um, I can’t jump the gun on too much ’cause [00:28:00] there’s gonna be some like really great announcements coming up soon. But, uh, we will be using, we. Multiple different hotels, all the conference space downtown. But we’ll, we’ll kind of break it into like, this will be the music area, this will be the innovation area.

This will be the film and TV area. So we’re gonna have, I’m just gonna use the word area now. ’cause when it actually gets announced, there will be, it’ll make way more sense and it will. Sound much better. We have a very, we have a new content and marketing team that’s just absolutely killing it right now.

They’re doing so good and they’ve got a, a great plan and our planning department also has like, absolutely busted their asses to get this together. ’cause without having the convention center, people just expected that like, oh, this is just gonna have to move to another city for three or four years. Like Uhuh.

We’re not going anywhere. And it is, it’s. You’re gonna probably have a better time than you did walking around the convention center.

Elizabeth McQueen: Are you gonna miss the [00:29:00] convention center?

Brian Hobbs: Absolutely not. I’m excited to, to see what they do with the new one. But number one, you can’t even walk around the whole building.

It was the most non-functional space ever, but also is just. This is just a feeling that, that you would know if you worked there. But there’s just this feeling of walking into the convention center for the first time during the festival and just knowing that like, oh crap. It’s no turning back now, like this is actually happening.

Look at all these people and it’s an excitement feeling, but. Also like absolutely terrifying at the same time. So not having that same feeling this year will be pretty cool.

Miles Bloxson: So from what I understand, it’ll be like panel discussions. I know you can’t tell us too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there’ll be like panel discussions happening and then live performances happening, and they all are gonna happen in the same spaces or spread throughout.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah, we’ll still use all of the music venues that we’ve used the last few years, so it’ll be the, the panel and [00:30:00] conference side will happen during the day and then the music showcases will start around seven, 8:00 PM like they always had, and now we’ve got the whole crowd who’s in for tech and innovation to go to the music showcases who haven’t previously got to experience that before.

So that’s something we’re super excited about.

Elizabeth McQueen: So music is gonna be happening during the whole festival for the first time. Are you guys gonna be trying to coordinate the music festival with other parts of the festival? Oh yeah,

Brian Hobbs: absolutely. Yeah. There’s more interdepartmental meetings right now than ever before and I just think it’s, ’cause there’s a lot of new people in new leadership positions and we’ve all kind of wanted to do this previously, but might not have had the support for it.

And now it’s just like. Everybody’s kinda like one team, one goal right now, and it hasn’t always felt like that in the past, and it absolutely feels like that right now. And it like, I’m super hopeful that a lot of these tech companies with that big money are gonna [00:31:00] want to do some cool music stuff at night.

And if they come to us and say, Hey, we have X, Y, Z budget. Go, what can we do? And it’s like there’s absolutely no limit to what you can do. The only limit is the budget. So you tell us you wanna do a cool music event, we’ll give you 50 options.

Elizabeth McQueen: I read an article in Austin monthly, Brian C. Parker, he kind of theorized that there was gonna be a lot more like music integrated with like big activations, kinda like Rivian did this year where it was like during the day they had like.

Get in our car and drive up this dirt hill. Yeah. And then at night they had bands play. So is that something that you kind of foresee as being more a part of this year’s festival?

Brian Hobbs: I’m hopeful for it, but I mean, we are gonna focus on curating the best music festival as possible, and then if that happens, that’s like icing on the cake for us.

So we’re gonna do our thing. If those companies do want to align with music, then that’s even better. ’cause that’s, you know, more excitement for [00:32:00] our attendees. More money in the pockets of the artists. So boom, y’all want to do that? Let’s do it. But we’re not going to, we’re not gonna bank on that as being like the cornerstone of our programming for this year.

We’re gonna do our thing. And if that happens, then great. That means it’s gonna be even better. We just wouldn’t, we don’t wanna sacrifice what we would normally be booking for that. It’s just, if that happens, it would be in addition to what we’re already working on.

Miles Bloxson: And I know we talked about this a little earlier in the conversation, but there was a time that South By Southwest was known for bringing in really big acts recently.

That hasn’t been the case. So do you think that South by needs big names to, you know, make it happen or make it more successful or.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah, I’m not gonna be delusional about it. Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think that we need to make it be the focal point of the festival and we would never do that. But I do think that there’s a certain [00:33:00] crowd who looks at South by Southwest, like it’s just another music festival.

Even people who haven’t ever been here before, they don’t realize that like, this isn’t a gigantic parking lot or a big park somewhere. It’s. 50 to 60 real music venues in downtown Austin that were programming these shows across. So instead of seeing those megastar artists from, you know, 500 yards away and they’re the size of a grain of rice while you’re trying to watch ’em, you can actually see them in a room in a intimate setting.

And you wouldn’t be able to see anywhere else. So that’s what I miss about the megastar artists that were coming to South by was the opportunity to see them do something different than what they did the rest of the year, or on their normal tours and stuff. This is the only place. Really that you could see that

Miles Bloxson: that’s what made South by so unique to me.

Exactly. You know, like I can think about all the people I’ve seen, like Carney B at Fader [00:34:00] Ford or Kalani at Fader Ford, but I didn’t have to, I wasn’t bum rushed on the stage or anything like that. I was actually able to walk right in front of the stage and be like, ah, that’s that person.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah. And it’s something that you’ll remember forever.

Like that’s what we really want to get back to. People feeling like they can’t afford to miss. South by Southwest because something will have happened that year that you’re gonna regret missing because you can’t just go see it on their tour whenever they go tour because they’re gonna go play an arena or an amphitheater or a stadium and not a music room in Austin.

Miles Bloxson: Can you tell us who we could expect this year to hear from?

Brian Hobbs: I wish I knew, ’cause if I knew then that would, that would make my job so much easier for the next few months. But I mean, we’re in discussion with every record label, every major booking agency, every independent booking agency, and we’re actually up.

About 20% on artist applications right now compared to this exact same day last [00:35:00] year. So even with the bad messaging around music being dead at South by, people are obviously still interested in it because our numbers are up. So numbers don’t lie.

Miles Bloxson: Yeah. Yeah. And so that 8,000 that you’re talking about has nothing to do with these larger names, right?

No,

Brian Hobbs: absolutely not. I mean, everybody, at the end of the day, if you’re a band who has played South by before this, you’ll understand this. But if you haven’t, you won’t. Our application is like overly complicated for no reason, and I. It drives me nuts, but everybody has to fill it out because that is what imports into our schedule.

We don’t manually enter anything. So at the end of the day, all of those major superstar artists, somebody on their team had to fill that out eventually at some point. But I wouldn’t count them in like the number that I’m talking about. But at the end of the day, like, yes, everybody has to do the exact same thing, Todd.

Play South by, and some of them will be like, I don’t want to have to fill this out. And I’m like, yeah, well, neither [00:36:00] did it to somebody on Kendrick’s team whenever he came, but they did it. So if they can do it, I promise that you can do it. Like it sucks, but just do it.

Miles Bloxson: There are some rumors that South by Southwest is doing away with wristbands.

Is that actually happening or is that just a rumor?

Brian Hobbs: I can’t go into any detail about anything besides saying that that rumor is absolutely incorrect, and I will say that once it gets announced. People who want wristbands will be very happy because they’ll be easier to get than ever before. Okay.

Elizabeth McQueen: So yes, that

Brian Hobbs: is, I don’t know where that rumor came from, but that one is super false.

Elizabeth McQueen: I saw that rumor a lot on Reddit. So you might to Reddit. Oh yeah. I mean

Brian Hobbs: the, it is been so hard for me to not create a Reddit account to respond to the just. Straight up bad information that gets posted on [00:37:00] there. Like, please don’t listen to anybody on Reddit about South by Southwest.

Elizabeth McQueen: Good to know. Um, so we talked about this earlier when you were talking about how South Bys changed, you know, since the pandemic.

A lot of people at a. Advertisers put their money rather than in big, live experiential experiences. They were going digital. And that also happened with music, right? So people started discovering music through like TikTok or like the Spotify algorithm or YouTube and not so much in person. So. What do you say to bands who say like, well, why should I come to South by Southwest Because I can just try to get a TikTok sound and like that could blow me up, as opposed to going and playing a show at South By,

Brian Hobbs: I mean, you’re gonna have a much better time at South by Southwest, but one thing that you can do at South by Southwest that you can’t do from your cell phone or your laptop is go to.

All of our panel programming for the music conference where they have mentor sessions, demo [00:38:00] listening sessions, you can get five years worth of information for your career in four or five days at South by Southwest, and otherwise you would have to spend much more time and much more money to. Get this same information and there’s things that you can do at South by that you literally can’t do anywhere else.

Like I don’t know what it is about being here, but there’s people in the music, like music industry executives who will have a conversation with literally anybody while they’re in Austin. It’s like something happens when they step off that plane that puts them in in a great mood and they will just talk to anybody and network and connect with.

All these artists where if you ran into them in New York or la, you know, they probably wouldn’t spray the water hose on you if you were on fire. But in Austin they’ll sit there with you at at the hotel lobby bar and talk to you all [00:39:00] day. Like it’s just, you know, I’m sure that happens few and far in between, but it does happen.

It happens more often than somebody gets lucky on an algorithm and blows up off one single, so. Put yourself in a, in the best position possible is all I’m gonna say. And also at the end of the day, you’re gonna have fun coming here. Like it’s not, you’re not going to have a bad experience, so you might as well do it.

Miles Bloxson: It’s crazy that you say that because we talked to an artist T Double. Do you know him? Yeah. Yeah. He said that going to South by changed his life because he would, not because of the live shows, but because he would literally go to these panel discussions and wait for people that he wanted to work with.

After the panel discussion and they would have those conversations. Absolutely. And he said he made more contacts doing that year after year after year. Yep. Um, than anything else that he’s ever done.

Brian Hobbs: T Double is a smart man, like that happens here and it rarely happens. There’s rarely any other place that you could get that done at.

You know, we, we, we get a lot of flack for people [00:40:00] being like, you know, sell Bus Southwest doesn’t pay artists well. That’s a, that’s like a five hour discussion that I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna crack that can of worms open here. But what’s more important, getting a couple hundred bucks or using your badge to go to.

These conference, the conference sessions during the day and the networking sessions during the day that you get to access all of that with your credentials. That is thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worth of information. And I know you can’t pay your rent with that. I get it, but it’s still very valuable.

So for people to act like that’s not. Extremely valuable is wild to me because if I was an artist, I would be the one like T double posted up outside of the session that I just went to to talk to the person who just spoke on that panel. ’cause I speak on panels at other conferences and festivals, and I talk to artists at other conferences and festivals, but none [00:41:00] of them are as big as South by Southwest.

So you can get 10 times the amount of that done. In the span of a few days,

Elizabeth McQueen: and this is something that always comes up about South by is Musician Pay, so just is there any musician pay increase this year or any like musicians get paid and get a badge or anything changing this year? Yeah, I mean,

Brian Hobbs: nothing’s changing this year, but we did just raise it two years in a row and it’s like.

I mean, I’m not the one who gets to make this decision. Yeah. If it was up to me like it is, the money’s not coming directly outta my pocket. I’d raise it every single year. But there’s people who are much smarter business people than me who are making those decisions. And I’m gonna roll with the decision that’s made.

And I think it’s pretty cool that we raised the, the rate for people who choose the monetary option instead of the badge. We raised it two years in a row. And there was a point where it, I mean, it didn’t change for 10 years and we were getting less flack about it back then than we get for it now when it’s continually increased.

[00:42:00] But I mean, us in the music department, we’ll, we’ll say every single year that like, yeah, we should, we would love to see it go up. But when it goes up, great. And the fact that it has gone up twice in the past three years makes me hopeful that it will continue to go up. However, if I was an artist, I would much rather have that badge.

And you know, it’s, it’s worth way more than you would, than almost all of the artists who are playing south by that badge is worth more than they would get for any other show year round.

Miles Bloxson: And being a South by Southwest official artist was like such a badge of honor. It still is. What other perks do people get?

They used to get like backpacks and like cool things, man.

Brian Hobbs: We’ve been trying to bring that damn backpack back for five years and. I am not gonna jump the gun. The backpack discussions are going better this year than any year for the past few years. And you know, that was, I, I’m sure it was like a jansport partnership or something, [00:43:00] but I see those backpacks in the airport all the time.

I see ’em in other cities, and there was just, it was just so awesome. It was something that people really liked and that’s something that we’ve been screaming about for years is like, give us more free stuff to give away, please. I used to have to call managers and be like, where are you at? I need you over here to, you know, you’re supposed to sign this, you’re supposed to do that.

And they’d be like, oh, we’re standing in line at the artist gifting suite. ’cause we want to get this, this, this, and we gotta get our backpacks. I’m like, damn. All right. Valid. Okay. Just call me when you’re done. We like. That’s something that is part of the whole discussion around having like an a music hub at a certain hotel and a space for the artist, like make the artist lounge a place where they would want to go at 11:00 AM and stay until 6:00 PM or something.

Like, yes, we are actively trying to bring a lot of that back, but man, the backpacks is, it’s number one for sure.

Elizabeth McQueen: Oh. As someone who, [00:44:00] uh, played as an official artist and got a couple backpacks and then when my kids went to school, those were the backpacks that they had. Hell yeah. I was like very, yeah. And has gone to some really nice artist gifting suites and stuff.

Yeah. Like yeah. Bring it back.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah. Oh, I mean, we we’re giving it our best shot and it will absolutely be better this year than it has been the last few years, but it’s just something that we’ve been trying and it’s finally starting to. To get put into effect.

Elizabeth McQueen: And we talked a little bit about like, why should a band come and play South by Southwest?

What about fans? Because fans have a lot of ways to discover music. Yeah. So why should fans, yeah. Travel to Austin and do South by,

Brian Hobbs: I mean, do you want to just. I mean, it, it’s different than just watching a band on your phone or on your laptop. It’s different than watching a band on most of their tour dates.

It’s different than watching ’em at a big, open field festival. Like it’s a place where you can only, like, you can’t even describe it to people who’ve never been here before. Like when people ask me to describe it to someone who’s never been to [00:45:00] South by before, I’m just like, I’ll do my best, but you’re just not gonna understand it.

Until you’ve came here before and experienced it, and then you won’t be able to explain it to the next person who asks you to explain it to ’em. But yeah, it’s because you can see things happen here that you can’t see happen anywhere else. And also. For the, for the price that it would cost to go to now seven nights of music showcases you’re gonna spend less money for an entire week to be able to go to as many shows as you would want to go to than you would for one concert ticket for an arena tour right now.

Elizabeth McQueen: That’s actually, though, that’s sadly true. Yeah, that is sadly true. Yeah. Yeah, I’m wiping away my tears. Wow. Yeah.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah. I mean,

Elizabeth McQueen: where and where you will see your favorite artist, as said, grain of salt, because to get up close at those, absolutely. At those venues, you have to pay like thousands of dollars. Oh yeah.

Miles Bloxson: You have to or you have to sleep there. And I’m not doing either. Since you’ve been with [00:46:00] South by Southwest, it has. Grown tremendously. Y’all now have festivals in London and Sydney. Do you think those festivals will impact the participation of international acts?

Brian Hobbs: I hope not. I would hope that the international acts would view it as, I want to go to Austin to get in front of a different crowd.

Then it, you know, ’cause especially with London, you know, UK acts are so important to South by Southwest and. Like for them, it would be like if you told a Austin artist, like you can play in Austin or you can play in London, which one would you want to do? Most likely they would be like, I’ve played in Austin a trillion times, of course I wanna play in London.

I’m hopeful that that’s how the artists in London and Sydney, because also with the osc, like osc and then so many of, um, you know, that side of the world. I would think that they will want to come here to get in front of a different audience than play at [00:47:00] home. I’m hopeful that. Then it would also have more acts from outside of London and outside of Sydney, wanting to play those festivals too, because who wouldn’t want to get in front of the music business in London like so,

Elizabeth McQueen: or Sydney?

Hello? Yeah, absolutely. You wanna be international.

Miles Bloxson: You wanna be global. Yes. So,

Brian Hobbs: yeah, I would hope that given the option they would want to play. Outside of where they’re from or further away from where they’re from, just to get in front of a, a new audience and potentially a wider audience.

Elizabeth McQueen: And so you’ve been with South by for a long time.

You’re here for this change. What do you think South by looks like? Five years from now.

Brian Hobbs: Well, if I’m making the guess, that’s when the convention center will be done. They say three years. But I mean, we’ve all watched how long it takes for, you know, I 35 construction. Oh my goodness. Don’t even tell me every day, Ryan.

Yeah, I mean, we, we watch [00:48:00] these, you know, condos get built and like, you know, a couple stories per year and it’s like, oh my God, it takes forever to build these. Things. So I would think five years from now we’ll get the convention center back and in my mind I’m envisioning everybody has had such a great experience with the next four year, like, you know, starting in 2026 with, you know, our individual areas that they’re like.

Cool. This was great. Let’s go back and see what this new convention center has to offer as far as how we’re booking things. Especially on the music side. It’s always gonna be with the, um, intentionally for talent discovery. Like we’re never ever gonna go away from that. And five years, I hope that we also have.

A lot more of the headliners also mixed in with that. But if that’s who you wanna see, I hope we can provide that. And if you come here to discover new bands every year, we’re absolutely gonna be still providing that too. So I’m [00:49:00] hoping that we can touch as many people as possible and make it fun for as many people as possible, especially the bands in the industry too.

So that’s, that was, that’s where I see it going. But yeah, I think in five years it’s, the story is gonna be. Oh man, the convention center is back now. What’s it gonna look like? And I’m excited to see what it’ll look like, and I’m also excited. That maybe we’ll be able to walk around the, the whole convention center without having to stop and turn around and go back in the other direction.

I would that to, it’s like a

Miles Bloxson: L, right? Or is it like a half a, a square? It was like a C. C. Like a C without missing side of a square.

Brian Hobbs: Yeah, it’s like a, I think it’s more like a G ’cause you run into like. You’re halfway around it and you run into a dead end.

Elizabeth McQueen: Oh

Miles Bloxson: my goodness.

Elizabeth McQueen: Yeah. For people. Yeah. And people who don’t live here.

Our convention center, there was no way to make a, like a circuit around the whole thing, full circle. Like you, if you walked to one end, you would literally, you couldn’t go around in a circle. You’d, you had to turn around and come back and walk a really long way.

Brian Hobbs: Oh, really long. I thought I was

Elizabeth McQueen: the only one that got [00:50:00] annoyed by that.

Brian Hobbs: Oh no. I mean, I, I, I guarantee you I walk like a marathon per day inside that. Convention center. That’s crazy. Trust me. I’d rather be inside than outside at that point. But yeah, not being able to just walk directly to where you’re going is, yeah,

Miles Bloxson: it’s insane.

Brian Hobbs: Y’all should have the person who designed that on and explain themselves.

Yeah.

Miles Bloxson: I just thought about that before you said the thought. I was like, man, who did that?

Brian Hobbs: Yeah. Explain yourself. Sorry. Right

Miles Bloxson: now. Well, is there anything we didn’t ask that you would like to leave the audience with?

Brian Hobbs: Nah, I mean, I feel like we covered everything that, the main thing I just wanna leave people with is just knowing four facts that music is not dead at South by Southwest.

It is going nowhere. It’s expanding our, our team is expanding. We are more excited for 2026 on the music side than we have been in a really long time.

Elizabeth McQueen: So we finished up the interview and I realized there was actually one more thing that I wanted to ask Brian that I [00:51:00] hadn’t asked him. So asked him to come back into the studio.

We actually recorded this in like a different studio than we recorded the original interview, so that’s why it sounds a little different. But here’s what I asked. So a couple years ago, PMC. Acquired a stake in South by Southwest, which means a big corporation that also owns like Variety. And Rolling Stone also is involved in South by Southwest.

So I was wondering like have things changed over there since that happened?

Brian Hobbs: Yeah, I can only answer that question for how it pertains directly to me and the music department, but not much has changed and definitely nothing’s changed negatively for us. I mean, first off. Penske obviously also owns Billboard and Rolling Stone, who have came in the past three to four years at South by Southwest and made big positive contributions to the music festival.

I mean, rolling Stones. Future of music at, um, [00:52:00] ACL Theater for the past couple of years has been, you know, four nights of some of the coolest artists that we’ve had across the whole festival. And then Billboards been blowing it out at Waterloo Amphitheater every year, and they’re gonna continue doing that.

So that part’s positive, you know, and I also think that whenever you have a, you know, a bigger corporate company come in and, you know. Take on half of a smaller, more independent company, people are gonna be worried about it from day one. But you know, I’ve, I’ve got this issue of being an eternal optimist about everything.

So immediately I was just like, how can I work together with them to do the coolest stuff? And knowing. What other brands that they own in music. I was immediately excited about it. And everybody on the PMC side that I work with is cool and they, they get it and they haven’t came in and tried to, you know, change and they, they’ve made changes operationally, but they haven’t made changes to how we [00:53:00] book the festival at all.

So overall, I think it’s super positive and the longer that we work together, the better it’s gonna get. And I mean, at the end of the day, if. They hadn’t came in when they did. Who knows if South by Southwest would even exist right now I’d probably be the, you know, regional manager at Home Depot if it wasn’t for the lifeline that they threw.

Elizabeth McQueen: We wanna thank Bee Hobbs for talking to us for this episode,

Miles Bloxson: and we wanna hear from you. What do you think? This next South by Southwest will look like. You can find us at Pause Play Pod on Instagram, email, or send a voice memo from your phone to pause. play@kut.org. Or go to kutkutx.studio/contactpauseplay, and leave us a voice memo.

Elizabeth McQueen: In the next episode, we’re gonna be talking about the future of vinyl with Caren Kelleher of Gold Rush Vinyl

Miles Bloxson: Pause. Play is a production of KUT and KUTX Studios. It’s hosted in, produced by me, Elizabeth McQueen, and me Miles Bloxson, engineering and editing help from Jake Perlman and Renee Chavez. Abby Bryfogel and Tinu Thomas helped with production.

Stephanie Federico is our digital editor. Michael Manasi is our multimedia editor. Our theme song was created by the Talented JaRon Marshall. Other music provided by the talented Jack Anderson and APM Pause/Play is a listener-supported production of KUT and KUTX Studios in Austin, Texas. You can support our work by becoming a sustaining member at supportthispodcast.org.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.