My annual #hottake — a collection of hurried, random and often incomplete thoughts- on the big announcement, a morning-of tradition which dates back to the days before there was such a thing as a hot-take:

• Musically, this is the most diverse ACL ever. Across the Top-10, there’s Pitchfork-approved alt.rock nostalgia, hip-hop, traditional- leaning country and EDM. And then there’s the still-undisputed kings of what a friend classifies as Stomp Stomp Clap, Mumford. The shift back towards the kind of country/Americana the TV show of the same name was built on — Willie, Chris Stapleton, Kacey Musgraves, Margo Price, Maren Morris — is a refreshing/unexpected turn. Just a few weeks ago, I’d have guessed they’d throw a token bone to Sturgill or Jason Isbell. This is better. And of course, there was a time the knock on ACL is that it didn’t do hip-hop in a meaningful/relevant way, especially as headliners. Now they have hip-hop headliners three years in a row: Eminem (plus, Outkast) in 2014, Drake last year and Kendrick now. There’s even a Christian rapper on the underbill — NT. ACL is finally representing the egalitarian genre-jumping way we consume music in a digital age.
• Meanwhile, it’d be easy to argue — as is the case in so many festival situations- that women are woefully underrepresented. HAIM and Musgraves are the highest ranking women and the latter is only playing one weekend. Expect think pieces. Angry think pieces.
• The lineup is ACL’s most top-heavy offering since Eminem and Pearl Jam in 2014. If last year’s relatively low-key Big Two — The Foo Fighters and Drake — seemed to suggest C3 was trying their luck at selling tickets by packing out the middle of the bill and saving significant coin on expensive headliners, in hindsight, it was probably just a product of what was out there to get. Radiohead ain’t cheap. And at this point, neither is Mumford or Kendrick Lamar. Radiohead and Mumford plays arenas/sheds. And by now, on a proper tour, Lamar could too.
• Purely from a lineup standpoint, and maybe for the first time ever, ACL > Lollapalooza. They’re both C3/Live Nation events and traditionally, there’s a fair amount of overlap. . In 2014, of Lollapalooza’s 10 biggest names, 8 appeared at ACL- the most crossover ever. Last year, 5 of Lollaplaooza’s top-10 were on the ACL list, but not necessarily in ACL’s Top 10 or playing both weekends. This year, top-10 to top-10, we share just three: LCD, Radiohead and Major Lazer. Lollapalooza’s top three this year is Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers and LCD. So the question is this: would you trade the Red Hot Chilli Peppers for Mumford & Sons and Kendrick Lamar? I’d make that trade all day long. Not convinced? Chicago gets Haim, M83 and Chris Stapleton. So does Austin. But where they have Jane’s Addiction, we have Willie. Both have Local Natives, Foals, Nathanial Rateliff and Die Antwoord. They have the 1975, we have Cage The Elephant. Call that one a draw, although the kids will tell you Cage is the decidedly more exciting live band. But again, Kendrick tips the scales in ACL’s direction. Worth noting: Lollapalooza, although just four days instead of six, is sold-out. That bodes well for ACL.
• The knock on festivals in general is that they’re all just shuffling the same acts. And to some degree, that’s true. ACL’s midsection looks largely interchangeable with other festival’s midsection. But two of ACL’s big four actually offer some exclusivity: Mumford & Sons have just one American festival on the books this year, July’s Firefly. Kendrick has three: Essence, Panaorma and FYF.
• There will surely be LCD fatigue by October, but there’s also a strong likelihood there’s a new album by then. Outkast, — the last big reunion to play every festival on earth before they finally got to ACL, didn’t disappoint, even without the benefit of a new record.
• ACL has always been a particularly family-friendly festival. We’ve all heard the stories of families that have gone to all fourteen years together, who’s kids come home from college like it’s a homecoming football game just to keep the family tradition intact. These aren’t the folks we hear whining about ACL. People who never went in the first place and people who have “aged out” are the loudest dissenters. Last year, the battle lines were easily sorted into age brackets. Under-30 got plenty of EDM and with more democratic tastes, they were able to look beyond headliners. Over-30 seems to judge festivals by their headliners and by the number of “heritage acts.” After a run that featured the Eagles, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty, etc, it’s been two years now since ACL broke from their tradition of a heritage headliner. 2013’s disastrous $20 tickets-on-Craigslist fiasco with Depeche Mode/Cure was probably to blame. This year, Radiohead is likely to satisfy both camps. And while the older crowd likely has little beef with Mumford and might even be fans, they’re unlikely to care for much more of the top-10. This is the new reality of ACL and it’s smart. Before long, the average heritage-act-loving ticket buyer will age out of the festival experience altogether. They don’t like the heat. They don’t like the crowds. But this year, they have the perfect excuse to pass: Desert Trip, aka Oldchella, which is on ACL’s second weekend.
• That said, Heritage Act I’m Most Surprised Isn’t Here For The Other Weekend: For the second year, Neil Young w/ Promise Of The Real (Willie’s sons Lukas and Micah)
• Top-heavy as it is, drill down past the top-10 and there’s well over a dozen bands who have/would sell out their own ticketed shows at rooms the size of Stubb’s or ACL Live (or in at least a half dozen cases, the now-defunct Austin Music Hall). There’s also at least a half dozen that could multiple nights at those size venues. As always, the bang for your buck is in the midsection.
• Most Noticeably MIA (and currently out working)- Future. Death Cab For Cutie. Dead & Company. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. Ryan Adams. Fitz & The Tantrums. Last Shadow Puppets. And a handful of acts that chose to play the Austin 360 instead: Dixie Chicks, No Doubt (or Gwen Stefani) and The Lumineers. (Of note: Mumford and Kendrick were both on this MIA list this time last year).
• Are we seeing C3 move away from more weekend-to-weekend variation, despite folks saying they wanted more of it? This year’s lineup still offers more week-to-week variation than Coachella, and yes, less than New Orleans Jazz Fest (who’s non-profit status makes it easier to book different lineups). But the Chris Stapleton/ Willie switchout is by far the biggest variation this year and I’m doubtful many people will consider that a big enough swap to base their choice on.
• By October, Most Likely To Draw A Crowd Significantly Bigger Than Their Stages Can Handle:

- Crossover country star in waiting Maren Morris.

- SXSW buzz sensations Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals.

- And, potentially with a new record, St. Paul & The Broken Bones.

• Although the overall commitment to Austin talent is there, this year doesn’t feature a Hometown Hero poised for a bigtime breakout hometown moment — as Gary Clark Jr., Shakey Graves or even way back when, Ghostland Observatory, got to enjoy. At the same time, maybe with the exception of Hayes Carll and outside of repeating those same names too soon, there’s just not currently an Austin act at the point in their career that a big grandiose breakthrough moment would have been likely.
• LL Cool J is this year’s Billy Idol — a mainstage afternoon outlier that’ll be more fun, and work better, than it looks right now on paper.
• The two-weekend model is still controversial, but also keeps the prices on the secondary market for tickets reasonable. For the most part, everyone looking to pay face value for ACL gets to go at face value. But for the next six months, people who hate festivals and traffic will suggest ACL should move to the Circuit Of Americas. This is a terrible idea. ACL works in Zilker. And only Zilker. And finally, maybe because of the backlash, we’re finally seeing C3 take some credit for the improvements they’ve made to Zilker — $20 million in donations over a 10 year period. Clearly, the park is better for having them there.. And if, or more likely, when, the chorus of festival haters gets loud enough to make this a council issue, here’s hoping they mic-drop that $20 million figure, shrug and say take it or leave it. A reasonable council — a reasonable city — will choose live music, real tourism and real dollars. And if you’re still worried about the state of the park — a) visit Zilker today and see how lush it looks and b) know that that the parks department, to protect the park from weather/crowd damage, just two weeks forced C3 to cancel their giant, and presumably lucrative, Food & Wine event. Parks is looking out for parks, but somehow you know better from at home behind a laptop screen?
• D’Angelo obviously did not offer a make-good on his 2013 cancellation. In 2014. In 2015. Or now.
• And finally, Willie! It’s his first ACL appearance in a decade. And sure, it’s just for one weekend. But it’s important he’ll be there. He’s as pure of a connection to the festival — and Austin’s- roots as there could be. But it’s important mostly because for as many chances as Austin has to see Willie, I still know so many people who’ve never seen him play. Bucket lists will get checked. Children will see Willie. And Willie’s often at his best — visibly jazzed even — by crowds he knows aren’t crowds that have seen him before. Willie Nelson, live in Zilker Park? When you get right down to it, Radiohead is just a bonus they throwing in with your three-day wristband.

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Andy Langer is a contributing Editor at Esquire and is the magazine’s music columnist. Similarly, he’s a Writer-At-Large for Texas Monthly and its music columnist. He also handles afternoons on KGSR (2pm-7pm) and returns each night at 11pm for The Music Meeting- an hour of handpicked new and Austin music. And since 1999 he’s contributed twice weekly to Time Warner Cable News Austin (formerly News 8 Austin and YNN Austin)– the city’s 24-hour television news station.

Creative Commons photo via Emmanuelle Bourgue on Flickr

15 Random Pieces Of “Official” Lineup Release Day Analysis:

THE LINEUP

• The Austin City Limits Music Festival has never been afraid to spend money to make money. Speculation around the Live Nation/C3 deal suggested they’d have even more cash to play with: and indeed, McCartney — who folks had always guessed was too rich for C3's blood- is headlining their first post-deal Lollapalooza. Even if Lollapalooza is bigger and thus easier to invest more heavily in, it’s a little surprising last year’s ACL Big Two- Eminem and Pearl Jam -seem not insignificantly bigger/more expensive than this year’s Big Two- Foo Fighters and Drake. Sure, all four acts play arenas/large sheds (and a special occasion stadium gig or two). And while Drake is a newly-minted festival headliner, he’s also arguably hip-hop’s biggest name with the widest appeal outside Jay-Z. Also, for years, folks complained ACL neglected hip-hop. Now they have hip-hop headliners two years in a row (plus, Outkast last year). You don’t get to have it both ways and complain about Drake. That said, if ACL can sell out both weekends- which I suspect it will — it’ll prove you can indeed sell out a festival based more on the lineup’s midsection and the overall experience than on headliners. I wonder if we’re not seeing the year where festivals refuse the $1 million+ headliners and try their luck at packing out the middle of the bill and saving significant coin?
• Like SXSW, ACL is now old enough and established enough to have two clientele with two distinctly different sets of expectations and tastes. How happy you are with this lineup is directly correlated to your age. Thanks to the leak, this is what the early FB/Reddit/Twitter returns suggest: Under-30, you’re stoked or really crazy-over-the-moon-stoked. And over-30 you’re probably thinking it’s still one headliner short of a real festival. Under-30 doesn’t just see EDM they like on this lineup, their tastes are more democratic… they’re more prone to look beyond headliners. Over-30 seems to judge festivals by their headliners and by the number of “heritage acts.” And this is the year ACL all but did away with the concept of the heritage headliner (maybe the Depeche Mode/Cure year producing a glut of $20 Craigslist wristbands is to blame?). And while they had success with the Eagles, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Tom Petty etc, I suspect they’re just doing their actuarial homework and guessing how long before your average heritage-act-loving ticket buyer ages out of the festival experience altogether. Plus, older fans expect better sound, better sightlines, better toilets than younger fans. And so, by now, this is all but fact: Asleep At The Wheel may be on the bill, but after last year’s successful lean into EDM, the ACL that was programmed to mirror the roots/Americana heritage tradition of the television show with the same name is largely a thing of the past. On this 2015 bill, Wilco would’ve been lucky to crack the Top 10.
• Heritage Act I’m Most Surprised Isn’t Here: Neil Young w/ Promise Of The Real (Willie’s sons Lukas and Micah)
• The middle is super-strong and perhaps even a few shades more diverse than years past. In addition to the EDM, and outside the top-tier lines, there’s well over a dozen bands who have/would sell out their own ticketed shows at rooms the size of Stubb’s or ACL Live (or in at least a half dozen cases, the Austin Music Hall). Even Vance Joy and Walk The Moon played recently sold out Stubb’s gigs. Simply put, they didn’t skimp on the middle. At all.
  -
• Most Noticeably MIA (and currently out working)- Mumford. Death Cab. My Morning Jacket. No Doubt. Kendrick Lamar. Ben Harper. Kacey Musgraves.
• The weekend-to-weekend variation is something folks say they wanted and now seem to have been granted on a larger scale. This year’s lineup offers more week-to-week variation than Coachella, and yes, less than New Orleans Jazz Fest (who’s non-profit status makes it easier to book different lineups). This is good. This means people have a real option choosing week-to-week and just as importantly, have real variation to choose from if they go both. This is undeniably a good development that offers value/choices to consumers.
• By October, Most Likely To Draw A Crowd Significantly Bigger Than His Stage Can Handle- Leon Bridges
• Those that say, “It’s all the same names” year-to-year or ACL-to-other-festivals aren’t necessarily wrong, but this isn’t the promoter’s faults- the blame goes to a musical landscape that’s not building new huge-drawing talent. And when there is a breakout, they move faster than ever- Sam Smith, with just one album, is fourth on Lollapalooza’s top line this year. Incidentally, last year, of Lollapalooza 2014's 10 biggest names, 8 appeared at ACL- the most crossover ever. This year, 5 of Lollaplaooza’s 10 are on the ACL list, but not necessarily in ACL’s Top 10 or playing both weekends, which mean this crossover is even less than those numbers suggest.
• Hometown Hero Not Named Gary Clark Jr. Who Will Play To Largest Crowd- Shakey Graves
• The Strokes are simply not headliner-level talent. A smaller festival, yes. ACL, no. And they’re going to get slaughtered by whatever EDM is set against them in the park — the under-30 set simply have no frame-of-reference, no real nostalgia for The Strokes. And over 30? Been there. Seen them. They aren’t The Cure or Depeche Mode- the Strokes accomplished too little over too short of a period.
• Billy Idol could’ve/should’ve and would have been better suited headlining a night of Fun Fun Fun.
• For the next six months, people who hate festivals and traffic will suggest ACL should move to the Circuit Of Americas. Ignore those people. ACL works in Zilker. And only Zilker. And Zilker — because of the C3 donations that so many suggest have sinister motivations- the park is better for having them there. There is not an argument against ACL that makes less sense or less likely to actually happen than the “move it to the Circuit Of Americas” rally-cry.
• D’Angelo obviously did not offer a make-good on his 2013 cancellation. Last year. Or now.
• Most Likely To Be The Festival’s Sleeper Hit (particularly for the over-30 crowd)- Chris Stapleton
• Of late, the real story of ACL hasn’t been a headliner, or even a musical moment, but the whims of Mother Nature. Obviously, the two-weekend model doubles the chance of a rainout. Pray for fair skies and sweatshirts. And then be prepared to be happy with unbearable heat.

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Andy Langer is a contributing Editor at Esquire and is the magazine’s music columnist. Similarly, he’s a Writer-At-Large for Texas Monthly and its music columnist. He also handles afternoons on KGSR (2pm-7pm) and returns each night at midnight for The Music Meeting- an hour of handpicked new and Austin music. And since 1999 he’s contributed twice weekly to Time Warner Cable News Austin (formerly News 8 Austin and YNN Austin)– the city’s 24-hour television news station.

Creative Commons photo by Kevin Harber via Flikr

This is the follow-up to March 10th’s The State Of SXSW Music 2015 on Cuepoint/Medium.

The Pruning

SXSW 2015 will be remembered as the year the genie got shoved, kicking and screaming, halfway back in the bottle. It was still too sprawling, too unfocused, too potentially hazardous to deem “smaller and more manageable,” but it sure felt less dramatic and noticeably lower-key than recent years. Some have called it a “return to form” and a “course correction.” And for a charitable few with short memories, “the best SXSW ever!”

How much more low-key was SXSW Music 2015?

• Enough that it must’ve appeared to Kanye West like some place that couldn’t deliver the attention he desires.
• Enough that you could easily dine downtown in parties of six without reservations.
• Enough that one major downtown hotel had a 45% occupancy rate for Saturday night.
• Enough that prime parking lots dropped their rates from $40 to $15 by Saturday night.
• And most importantly, enough that badge and wristbands clearly delivered more value and shorter lines than perhaps in a decade or more. Headliner-level bands and major industry types may have honored their promises to sit this one out, but this was the year that at venue after venue, showcase after showcase, people queued up, and in the end, everybody got in. Sift through #sxlines hashtag and its hard to find a horror story that wasn’t a private party or corporate activation.
  Sure, Mother Nature gets an assist. As does the bitter (and deadly) still-lingering aftertaste of SXSW 2014. But it’s impossible to believe that fewer permits, a more perceptible police presence and stepped-up code enforcement during SXSW interactive didn’t play a large part in the pruning.

If SXSW got dialed back some, it’s because almost everybody — bands, clubs, sponsors, the city, fans and, yes, SXSW Inc. — tweaked their approaches at the same time. Spring breakers still run roughshod over Dirty Sixth. And Sixth east of I-35, with is narrow sidewalks and lack of street closures, felt more like a 72-hour game of Frogger than ever before. But even if SXSW 2015 felt too chaotic to trigger a true SXSW 2.0, it’s obviously given the folks capable of making changes a blueprint for what’s next. What they do with it will be the story of SXSW 2016 and beyond.

Sponsors and Parties

No surprise, the festival’s longest lines, sources of police attention/action, and biggest social media drivers were the parties and sponsor activations — both officially and unofficially SXSW-sanctioned. The city got ahead of it four ways — by reducing the number of permits, approving acts (i.e. you couldn’t stage a Kanye show in a parking lot), staggering cut-off times for outdoor permitted events, and clearing out or shutting down venues during Interactive. During the festival — for both parties and popular official showcases — the city also insisted venues like Stubb’s and the Mohawk opened doors early to cut down on lines.

At the same time, it seems like the brands driving many of what were prior SXSW’s biggest headaches/parties rethought their approaches. Some anecdotal evidence:

• Take Red Bull. Rather than throw a giant parking lot party, as they’ve done in the past, Red Bull went the micro route, fully financing and helping to find gigs and publicity for a trio of their Sound Select artists. Rather than cater to the same folks who RSVP for 500+ other parties, they were able to focus their considerable money/PR machine on something smaller and more manageable — something that would connect them to influencers not just partiers. Each of these acts played different parties around SXSW (Hype Hotel, Culture Collide events, Flood Fest, etc), and RedBull’s PR team worked to get people to these other parties, rather than their own.
• Samsung, famous for spending on Jay-Z/Kanye in 2014, tightened their purse-strings considerably. Sure, they brought D’Angelo and Mary J Blige to interactive, but rather than put them in the Austin Music Hall, they used a 150-person “Supper Club” concept. And their three larger parties during music — Iggy Azalea, A$AP Rocky and Hot Chip — suggests either they refused to pay or the big name refused to play.
• On that note, this was the year fewer parties ponied up for exclusivity. Big Sean. Spoon. ODESZA. Run The Jewels. Courtney Barnett. They seemed to be everywhere. Nonetheless, that neither seemed to dull attendance for those shows or cut into those act’s cred — they got to take the money AND satisfy fans who wanted to see them. As for the handful of exclusives, safe to say nobody left SXSW talking about AXE and John Legend.
• Take Saturday’s Fun Fun Fun Fest lineup at The Mohawk. Part of the House Of Vans series, it succeeded not because they went big on talent, but because the day’s featured brand (Fun Fun Fun) is a brand that’s wholly made music its brand. This is clearly the kind of party SXSW needs more of.
• Verizon’s “Austinites Unite” campaign was geared not towards attendees, but locals — offering them free rides, delivering them coffee and during interactive, a free day of Franklin BBQ. They essentially counterprogrammed against every other brand that catered to the flocks coming for SXSW, not to the folks who’ll still be here when the last flights leave.
• And finally, Fader. They went the business as usual route, presented 50+ acts — from Passion Pit to a surprise Miley Cyrus guest appearance — and again dominated SXSW-related social media. They seemed to do everything right and very little differently than previous years — aside from taking a very responsible pre-festival step to not offer a giant anyone-can-RSVP form. And while it was still completely free to attend, Saturday night and Sunday, folks took to social media to complain a rumored Kanye West appearance didn’t happen — an appearance Fader never promoted or promised. (It was also unlikely from the start that Kanye’s Adidas deal would allow to play a Converse-sponsored party) Sunday, Fader publisher Andy Cohn took to Twitter to say “If you can complain about Kanye West not showing up after seeing 50 amazing artists over 5 days, you are a PATHETIC MISERABLE HUMAN.” It’s hard to believe other brands aren’t looking at the post-Fader fallout and wondering if it’s all worth it.

Programming

SXSW: Hip-Hop. Film. Interactive.

That’s what it’s come to.

SXSW has a programming problem. Once upon a time, Austin hip-hop insiders Matt Sonzala and Tee Double worked tirelessly for SXSW trying to convince hip-hop acts that there was an audience at SXSW for anything but alt.country and indie rock. Even just a few years ago, singer/songwriter Matt Nathanson looked at the streets of SXSW and called it “a Mumford & Sons convention.” Now, the pendulum has swung wide the other way. Perhaps because MCs are cheaper to move around than full bands, or perhaps because hip-hop acts still see value in the hustle (free/low-paying gigs for “promotion” are the norm year-round), SXSW’s biggest names and biggest showcases are now hip-hop oriented. The way major summer festivals are leaning into EDM, SXSW has leaned into hip-hop. It’s not a “problem” because it’s hip-hop, but a problem because so much of the programming seems to swing in one genre-specific direction. It could be that SXSW is simply reflecting our times — hip-hop and country are what sells. And despite heavy pre-festival chatter Garth Brooks was heading our way this year, SXSW has never made a concerted effort to draw in popular radio-friendly country acts.

Assuming SXSW still needs big names — to drive badge/wristband sales and to bring in the upper-echelon industry types that only come when their moneymaking artists appear at the festival — the question becomes whether non-hip-hop SXSW acts begin to feel left out/left behind. Already, take the sponsor-paid acts out of the picture and SXSW is having a hard time getting major acts to believe it’s worth playing for petty cash or badge/wristband paydays. Again, imagine any other year where acts the caliber of Alabama Shakes, Death Cab For Cutie, Modest Mouse, Mumford & Sons or My Morning Jacket all have recent/forthcoming albums to promote and instead opt out altogether. Interestingly, not only was Kayne a no-show, but also the two biggest things in hip-hop, Kendrick Lamar and Drake.

Also interesting: at most of the major hip-hop showcases, the cash line seemed to outnumber the badge/wristband lines. Is SXSW programming something its core audience — badges and wristbands — aren’t interested in?

And then there’s this piece of seriously uncomfortable business: SXSW’s programming emphasis on hip-hop is clearly a catalyst for the non-SXSW-going spring break crowd. As I mentioned in the preview piece, while none of the kids here for spring break have a snowball’s chance of seeing much of anything, Austin is going to be their chosen destination for spring break because this is where Kanye, Jay-Z etc have been. The headliner-level talent still coming to SXSW — from Miley to J. Cole — are exactly the kind of mass-appeal acts that fuel spring break revelry. And make no mistake, it’s not a race issue, it’s a mob mentality issue — what makes Dirty Sixth feel dangerous are throngs of people drawn here purely to party.

A House Divided

Of the reactions and comments to my State Of SXSW Music 2015 piece, the one that resonated the strongest — and then colored my vision the most — came from Austin’s Ron Deutsch. “SXSW is going through a generational change,” he wrote on Facebook. “SXSW was a Gen X festival, but it is now becoming a Millennial festival.”

When you look at is this way, a lot of the SXSW-jumped-the-shark handwringing starts to make sense: the festival simply isn’t built for the audience that fondly remembers the relative peace, quiet and musical discovery of SXSW 1997. Or SXSW 2003. The festival is now old enough that there’s two distinct SXSW camps — those that were here when it was smaller and more manageable and those that don’t know any different. Millennials, Deutsch argued, are used to relentless marketing from big brands. Not even McDonald’s offends them. They not only don’t care whether Madonna or Bono didn’t keynote, they’re not interested in a keynote at all — they weren’t here when the “conference” part of SXSW ruled the daytime schedule instead of day parties. Gen X is offended by big names taking showcase slots from young unsigned talent. Millennials are used to stacked Coachella and Lollapalooza lineups — they want to see those names here. And oddly, considering its Gen X that says they yearn for the days of SXSW discovery, millennials are used to seeking out the upstarts and the underdogs on streaming services and social media. They want to see both big pop acts and the underground-leaning acts that might never develop into a big pop act. You can pretty easily argue they have more eclectic tastes than the SXSW traditionalists.

When you get down to it, the people most offended by SXSW 2014 — the ones who sat out 2015 — likely weren’t 20-somethings but folks in their late-30s, 40s and 50s who could compare and contrast with the SXSWs of old.

Deutsch’s conclusion- — “If SXSW is to continue, it will no longer be defined by Gen X interests and values, but the ‘new’ young people, for better or worse” — is the story of SXSW 2015. SXSW is a house divided. There’s not a lot of crossover between Fetty Wap and Alejandro Escovdeo or Dej Loaf and Drivin N’ Cryin. A handful of events, like Willie Nelson’s Heartbreaker Banquet, seemed to appeal to both camps, but I’m guessing there’s not a lot of folks that can say they went to both the Austin Music Awards and the mtvU Woodies. And the Music Awards packed out a giant Convention Center hall all night — not because the lineup was stellar, but because at this point it’s counterprogramming SXSW. It’s where Austinites who remember the Armadillo seek refuge from showcases featuring very little they’ve heard of. SXSW needs the awards — or an event like this year’s Doug Sahm tribute — because great festivals nod to their roots as much as they do the future, but it’s obvious these events aren’t in line with the prevailing SXSW Zeitgeist. Almost nobody seemed to notice Neil Young was here with a film or that Little Steven stepped in as unannounced guest at the Awards. Even the highly-anticipated Kurt Cobain documentary that SXSW Film showed during SXSW Music seemed to get lost in the shuffle. That might be because the media covering the festival has changed too — they’re Millennials looking for stories that yield page views, not for acts that appeal to music fans that still have Trouser Press Guides on their bookshelves. Not long from now, these Millennials will be the only ones telling SXSW’s story. And the story will be about them.

Safety

Overall, conventional wisdom suggests SXSW felt smaller and a few shades less dangerous. Then again, we’re not cops on Sixth Street. But even on Sixth, there seemed to be less tension. One theory, is that when Sixth is as crowded as it is during SXSW, people loitering on Sixth in the street are a few shades less drunk because it’s harder to go to a succession of bars. Therefore, fewer fights, fewer public intoxication issues.

The Austin American-Statesman credits a “quieter” SXSW to this: “Street closures and police presence in the downtown core were heightened with as many as 87 police cars being used to block off streets, several new enforcement teams, a group dedicated solely responding 911 calls in the area and a 120-officer-strong crowd control team.”

The biggest issue seemed to be pedestrian safety. And not just because it was on everybody’s mind after last year’s Red River tragedy. Cracking down on jaywalking seems silly on paper, but given the amount of near-miss cars vs. pedestrian accidents I witnessed, it makes sense in practice. Red River and Cesar Chavez had minimal police presence and a lot of near-misses. And as I mentioned, everything east of 35 on Sixth felt like a perilous mix of large crowds, small sidewalks and open streets.

Just as problematic: clubs where lines careened off the sidewalks and into the streets. For a club with a line, it’s a lot to patrol because there’s not just one line at most venues, but four: Cash; Badges; Wristband; Sponsor/VIP. And because a lot of venues have day parties and need to flip the house, opening late has become the norm. Worse still? Parties that want lines to give the illusion there’s more going on inside than there is. They’ll hold the lines even if the club isn’t at fire code capacity. And it’s not just clubs. Trailers and food courts across both sides of town also seemed to have lines stretching into the street at dinner time.

These aren’t easy things to control, particularly when SXSW utilizes so many venues. Clearly, some of those venues cede control to private party promoters or, during official showcase times, think lines are SXSW’s problems. My guess is that line maintenance and venue control are elements the city will message and enforce more heavily for SXSW 2016.

It Still Works

SXSW still works. It’s still the four-day ground zero for the music industry and people who love music. It provides indelible moments that are about music (the fan that sits in with Ghostface Killah at the Mohawk and absolutely owns his verse). It provides opportunities for young bands to play in front of major industry types that simply wouldn’t endure the hassle of seeing them at a New York or Los Angeles showcase at this point in their careers (Austin’s Walker Lukens). Big star, small room, one show, still works (J. Cole). And it’s still possible to cut through the noise and walk away with serious buzz or reinforce the buzz you came in with (Leon Bridges). And only at SXSW does Bill Murray watch your set and buy your vinyl from the stage afterwards (The Mastersons). Not for nothing, Bill Murray, by the way, is the great uniter of SXSW past and present, Gen X and the Millennial.

What’s Next?

The biggest question is whether a mellower SXSW simply means everyone that sat out comes back because they heard good things?

At what point does the Fear Of Missing Out send everyone back to SXSW to try again? And by everyone, I mean headliner-level acts, industry leaders and big sponsors with plans for big activations. Is the relative quiet of SXSW 2015 just an anomaly, an off-year?

Or, do brands take Red Bull’s cue and go even smaller? We’ve already seen it happen at SXSW Interactive — where major brands curate small dinners for select influencers rather than throw big parties for folks that may or may not be actual customers. And if your choices are pay for Kanye or pay the price on social media when Kanye doesn’t show up, what’s the point of having the party anyway?

Will major venues like Stubb’s or ACL Live — who already have input on what acts are placed in their venues — push back at SXSW programmers, insisting they supply talent that fills their venue for more than a few hours a night or threaten to walk away and program their own venues with non-official events?

Does Kimmel come back? In town, the week’s worth of shows seemed to generate far less chatter than they did in 2014. But it’s obviously a good look for the city. And god knows we have a lot of new hotel rooms that need filling the other 50 weeks of the year.

SXSW Sports seemed like SXSW’s biggest winner. Crowded panels. A clear programming focus. The chance to lure bigger and better athletes every year — stars that are actually bigger than rock stars. It’s got obvious room for growth in an uncrowded market. But how much SXSW is too much? Is SXSW Sports, the similarly promising SXSW Food and SXSW’s move towards “convergence” programming a sign SXSW may eventually be one big 10-day event without the clear delineations between music, interactive and film? Don’t they already bleed into each other anyway?

And more specifically for SXSW 2016, it’s a good guess the city will aggressively pursue more opportunities to trim SXSW back, particularly on the permitting front. If just a few moves spun the dial back this far, what would happen if they made permitting deadlines earlier and the expectations re: staffing, line maintenance and guest lists clear from the beginning?

Conventional wisdom suggests the relative peace and quiet of SXSW 2015 is just what SXSW needed. But just as surely, come January 2016, everything we talked about heading into this year’s festival will be up for debate again, almost as if SXSW 2015 never happened. That’s the nature of something with as many moving parts as SXSW. It’s not quite too big to fail, but plenty big enough to make everyone in its path shudder and second-guess themselves. For better or worse, the real answers — those that stand to decide the very fate of SXSW — are always another year away.

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Andy Langer lives in Austin, Texas. He is the music columnist for both Esquire and Texas Monthly. He’s also the afternoon host on Austin’s KGSR.

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A SXSW Music 2015 Postmortem Report was originally published in Cuepoint on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

1. The SXSW Reset

Fewer huge stars. Fewer parties. An irrelevant keynote speaker. And a whole lot of industry folks saying, “I’ll sit this one out.” This is likely the story of SXSW 2015. And if SXSW was even moderately good at public relations or concerned with messaging, they’d be spinning it like this: “This will be a smaller, manageable SXSW because it needed to be smaller and more manageable.” SXSW is an overgrown tree we can’t afford to—and wouldn’t want to—see cut down. But this is the year SXSW gets a long overdue pruning.

2. Big Talent Opts Out

This will undoubtedly go down as the SXSW with the fewest “headliners” in recent SXSW history. For better or worse, there’s but a small handful of acts this year that could play a main stage of Coachella, Lollapalooza or even Fun, Fun Fun after 3pm.* Imagine any other year where acts the caliber of Alabama Shakes, Death Cab For Cutie, Modest Mouse, Mumford & Sons or My Morning Jacket all have recent/forthcoming albums to promote and instead opt out altogether. Imagine a year where the two most talked-about new multi-format artists on radio—Hozier and George Ezra—also opt out. Instead, this is the SXSW where the return of Incubus warrants an official SXSW news release. Without a guarantee from a major sponsor, every major touring act has to ask what we’ll call The Ex-Cops Question: is the “exposure” is worth it? And this year, the sponsors made it easy. Either they refused to pay or the big name refused to play: Samsung went from Jay-Z and Kanye to Common and Hot Chip. You do the math.

Kanye is, love em’ or hate em’, a bona fide superstar. Kanye at Stubb’s—should it happen—is an “event,” but not half the event it would have been if Kanye didn’t come virtually every year. (Exception: Prince, who was here in 2013, would still be an “event,” because he’s Prince)

3. Your Wristband Has Value Again

Look at the lineup and count the number of showcases stacked with recognizable talent you’d anticipate badgeholders might camp out and stay all night for. Very few. And not even most nights at Stubb’s, AMH or ACL Live. This year, your wristband may be as powerful as a badge.

4. Artist Discovery

If you’re the type who’s bellyached for years that SXSW should be about artists discovery, if you’re the type that scoffs at major-label talent playing the festival because they take the place of an unsigned band, this is your year. The downside? Big talent brings their teams with them—booking agents, managers, label brass, indie publicists, product managers, etc. Those acts stay home, many of those folks stay home because there’s nobody to bill the Four Seasons rooms back to. If they stay home, who are the “industry” the young discoverable bands are playing for at what’s by SXSW’s own admission is designed to be an “industry” gathering?

5. SXSW Trickle Down Economics

SXSW pumps $300+ million into the Austin economy. People argue passionately about SXSW—and genuinely fear for its future—because they care about SXSW, because Austin needs SXSW. There’s nothing yet to say fewer people will necessarily be in the clubs (and with fewer parties there should actually be more people in the clubs), but I’ve already heard from club owners that fear SXSW shrinkage puts their SXSW bump at risk. SXSW is the bona fide tide that lifts the boats for year-round music clubs. Fewer folks through the door, fewer drinks sold. Also, it seems sponsors have ponied up for fewer day parties—which mean high rental fees and big bar tabs. I’ve heard of downtown live music venues with daytime availability still on their calendar, a phenomena unthinkable as recently as last year. A mediocre SXSW for the clubs means a bad August stings that much harder.

6. Why Are So Many SXSW Venues Not Year-Round Music Venues?

SXSW uses non-music venues because they still insist on booking 2,000 official acts. And why do they book 2,000 acts? Because if they don’t lock up those rooms that aren’t live music venues—dance clubs, shot bars, restaurants, hotels, etc on Sixth, Red River, Eastside—SXSW is afraid someone else will use those room for non-SXSW showcases.

7. So What?

2,000 acts does this:

• It dilutes the overall quality of SXSW. Are there really 2,000 bands worth your attention?

• It widens the fray—standing out of a pack of 2,000 is 2x as tough as standing out of a pack of 1,000.

• It means a band can fly from Scandinavia (or drive in from Buda), only to play a room with poor sound, shaky can’t-keep-your-drums-upright stages, and non-existent sightlines. The #1 complaint I hear from SXSW showcasing acts is about poor sound, lack of sound checks, and overall less-than-desirable conditions at clubs that only present music during SXSW.

• And this year, it means spreading out the few high-profile acts SXSW has to make it worthwhile for these non-music venues to participate—taking crowds and dollars away from the clubs who fight the good fight to present live music year round, not just these 4 days.

8. The Other SXSW

Conservatively, recent SXSWs feature 500+ events outside the official nighttime showcases, most with open-to-all RSVPs and free booze. That there’s too many parties, too little city/state control over them, is at this point, conventional wisdom. And SXSW has a long, controversial history of trying to curtail the spread of non-official SXSW events—most famously by providing lists to the city to shut down private events they’re not affiliated with, and long before the Red River tragedy used “safety” as a crux of their argument that unofficial SXSW events must be curtailed/stopped. (Note: often, conveniently, their targets are events sponsored by companies in the same product categories as their official sponsors.)

Right after SXSW 2011, City of Austin Music Programs Manager, Don Pitts told KUT, “We need to curtail it, and I think dial it back some.” (I’ve also heard him describe SXSW as “10 gallons of shit in a 5 gallon bucket.”) Pitts has been vocal that SXSW must be pruned to survive. But it’s a tightrope walk. As I wrote last year, “curtail the parties, free shows, and unofficial showcases and the value of the SXSW experience—the atmosphere around the event, even for as overgrown as it’s become—and you risk losing SXSW Inc. altogether.”

The city is clearly on the right page trying to control some of the sprawl of official and unofficial events. The idea that SXSW has to get smaller before it can grow, or, more likely, before it implodes, is obvious and essential. And indeed, Pitt’s office has been proactive this year—curtailing the number of permits the city would offer and being transparent about the deadlines. Also, whether an event was officially SXSW sanctioned or not took a backseat to whether it was being held in a viable and safe space capable of handling the kind of crowds they’d be drawing (i.e. you can’t get approval to put Kanye in a parking lot on E. 5th). The city even was transparent enough to share the entire list of permit applications—addresses and all. It’s my hope party pruning is enough and noticeable (and indeed, the # of parties seems to be reduced at least 30% or so).

9. McDonald’s. Ugh.

We all had a laugh at the Fry-Fi truck. Then shit got real. Here’s the good news: for all the talk of SXSW getting back to music discovery, in walks McDonald’s, and rather than book Taylor Swift or the first major pop star willing to look past the fact that this is an unpopular brand that reflects poorly on their brands, they booked a lineup of emerging artists. For this, we should applaud them. But… not paying them is obviously a mistake. Saying “we’re just following protocol” is also a mistake. And as many have pointed out, the Ex Cops fiasco was an opportunity to rise above—to say protocol and the status quo aren’t enough. Ex Cops teed it up for McDonald’s to be the good guy. Hinsdight is 20/20, but what they should have done, clearly, was created an appropriately low-key package of SXSW initiatives, been happy with their logos plastered all over SXSW’s sponsor banners, and factored in that damn near everyone they’d be marketing to is already has a concrete impression of their brand. Already it’s clear graduate marketing classes will be making this a case study in what not to do.

Who else should have known that SXSW and McDonald’s were bound to be an awkward marriage? SXSW Inc. SXSW needs sponsors and there’s zero wrong with that. Zero. Corporate sponsors make SXSW (and every other festival, from Coachella to ACL) possible/profitable—without them, tickets would cost considerably more than they do and many simply wouldn’t happen at all. But when year after year the knock on your festival is that it seems catered more to brands than bands, when folks start to complain choir-like that the corporate encroach feels sleazy and exploitative, that’s the time to reevaluate who you partner with. And coming off the Doritos debacle of 2014, you align yourself with McDonald’s?

This year’s sponsor roll includes beer, cars, cell carriers, insurance, banks and energy drinks (none of whom have been individually signaled out for McDonald’s-style disdain). But the sponsorship suits at SXSW had to know that McDonald’s would come to symbolize what people perceive to be wrong about the festival. The backlash to McDonald’s, before even the first Fry-fi truck hits the streets, is what happens when you make decisions based more on bank routing numbers than your head or your heart. (Last year, SXSW took sponsorship money from Penzoil, despite also hosting SXSW Eco.) Sometimes the best money is the money you leave on the table.

10: A Smaller, Manageable SXSW Might Not Just Save SXSW, But Save Us From SXSW

If this isn’t a dramatically and noticeably smaller SXSW, it’s all but certain SXSW is going to make a larger run at city officials to implement the recommendations of Populous—an international design and planning firm, with clients like the Super Bowl, the World Cup, and the Olympics. Last year, they issued a report (that SXSW commissioned and paid for) that recommended creating a “Legal Injunctive Zone,” or a “Clean Zone.” This is a perimeter around some part of the city that Populous says “Protects the brand equity of SXSW and its sponsors but would be made to work with existing businesses and their interests so as to uphold sponsor values and private property rights—in return this may involve a financial exchange linked to the permit process that provides the City with additional funding for security and safety personnel.” In effect, SXSW would buy the rights to control city permitting and super-serve their sponsors. The report says, “The current policy of the City with respect to the permitting process as ‘first come, first served’ and/or ‘must treat everyone equally’ appears to have become detrimental to event planning process and management of the key stakeholder interests.”

Even in a missive this long, we don’t have space/time to explore the ramifications of a clean zone or its legality. But… if this SXSW appears more manageable, if Pitts’ decrease in the number of approved events puts any kind of dent in the party circuit, then SXSW loses some of the teeth behind its quest for a clean zone. This is the best example of how a shrunken SXSW could be good for everyone: SXSW feels more manageable/less scary, SXSW Inc. loses some of its ammunition for political/rhetorical fear-mongering/rights-grabbing, and SXSW goes on for years and years as a big- but less frightening, less likely to implode enterprise—trickling down substantial cash for everyone.

11. Spring Break

Unfortunately, even if SXSW 2015 is smaller, the spring break component might not allow it to feel smaller and more manageable. Sixth Street is a cesspool of sketchy shot bars, public intoxication and the threat of random violence year-round. It’s 5x worse during SXSW. And it’s a virtually unavoidable thoroughfare during SXSW. If you’re here for SXSW, but not spring break, you can’t possibly feel good about Sixth. But the worst part is this: none of the kids here for spring break have a snowball’s chance of seeing much of anything, but they’re going to want to be here next year again because this is where Kanye, Jay-Z etc have been. The headliner-level talent still coming to SXSW are exactly the kind of pop-oriented mass-appeal acts that fuel spring break revelry. Beefed up TABC control, more police, etc are reportedly on the way this year. Hopefully that’s true. Because so much of what makes SXSW feel dangerous and toxic is about Sixth Street and spring break, not about the music festival than runs through it. I suspect not even McDonald’s would dare put a Fry-Fi truck on Sixth during SXSW Music.

12: Conclusion

2015 will be a transitional year for SXSW. And, again, SXSW needed some kind of transition. Show me somebody who didn’t think 2014 was miserable. Make no mistake, there are two SXSWs: SXSW the corporation vs. SXSW the huge event that for better or worse includes/envelopes all of the parties, free shows, and unofficial showcases. I get that it must be frustrating for SXSW Inc. to take the blame for both SXSWs. I get that it makes them defensive and ornery. What we need is both SXSWs to play well together.

The good news for SXSW Inc. is that sponsors who’ve concluded marketing to fewer, better people more directly is more effective than mass marketing aren’t going away or changing their strategy anytime soon (unless, of course, the influencers they’re targeting stop coming). The bad news for SXSW is that a lot of those sponsors will look for ways to go rogue. They always have. But what SXSW (and thus Austin) needs right now has nothing to do with sponsors. What SXSW needs is a series of SXSWs where the takeaway has nothing to do with sponsors or big name talent and is more in line with what put SXSW on the map: “I saw great bands in a great city and even got some business done.”

Here’s hoping SXSW is that kind of return to form. Fingers crossed.

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Top Photo: Ed Schipul’s “sxsw sixth street 2014" via Flickr and Creative Commons

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The State Of SXSW Music 2015 was originally published in Cuepoint on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.