Reading the Tea Leaves at the Trade Show

Full SXSW Coverage for Live Concerts and Exclusive Performances

I've been really interested how SXSW has been affected by the economic downturn, an issue addressed by my colleague Stephen Thompson today in a piece for Morning Edition. Stephen took an incisive look at how one band grappled with the decision to finance their trip to Austin this year. I conducted a little field research of my own: at the trade show.

And while you can still stock up on enough company-embossed guitar picks to hold you through the next financial quarter, truly, it seemed sparse compared to years past. Roomy. Besides inevitable repeat offenders like ACAAP and Sound Exchange, it seemed you could break many of the vendors this time round into four categories: international, Austin, gear and musician-oriented social network sites. So the folks who can afford to come either have government arts/tourism commissions backing them (New Zealand, Ireland, Japan, regions of Canada and Spain, etc), or they're local and they don't have to worry about housing and shipping costs (Austin Chronicle), or they're feeling somewhat stressed.

I asked a smiley rep for a high end audio equipment company if there'd been any debate about coming this year and his demeanor instantly changed. He looked around furtively and shrugged. "Not so much this year," he said. "Next year, we'll see."