SXSW!

Back in Chicago I learned this trick to get into expensive festivals for free: vol-un-teer.

Benefits:
1) You always get a t-shirt.
2) You always get in free.

Usually you need to get on the event website several months in advance, but after turning over your contact info you can just sit around until the month before when they get in touch with you. I have used this trick to get into Lollapalooza 2005-2008 and this year I'm using it to get into South By Southwest here in Austin. I picked up my gear today (TWO t-shirts and a fancy music badge) to get me in to see any of the 1,800 artists I want.

Pitfalls:
1) You will always have to work in a location that keeps you from seeing some of the bands you want. Usually the event staff will let you pick an area you want to work, but inevitably you will end up missing out on somebody somewhere.
2) Often you have to do labor that will leave you pretty exhausted and/or sunburned at the end of the day.

At Lollapalooza, Zach and I usually do a lot of walking and a lot of time in the August heat. But Lolla requires zero commitment prior to the event and the shifts are usually only 4 hours. This SXSW volunteer gig is definitely more demanding than Lollapalooza (it has required one orientation, one mandatory evening of grunt work prior and then three nights of long 6pm-2am shifts during the festival). However, the value of this SXSW music badge that I get is $695 so it's hard to complain too much about the demands. Also, a lot of the bands play for free during the day to get maximum exposure so I'll be seeing mucho music anyway. I'll be working at Club de Ville and it sounds like my biggest duty will be to lug equipment on and off stage in between sets. I'll let you know how it goes and try to keep track of everybody I get to see this week.