South by Southwest®, abbreviated and popularly known as SXSW®, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly and held each March in Austin, Texas. The first SXSW took place in 1987, and the event has grown in both scope and size every year since.
Rebecca Throne
The ticketing industry was well-represented at this year’s with two discussions — “Fan-First Solutions for Fair Ticketing in Live Entertainment” and “The Cost of Admission & the Next Era of Ticketing” — featuring a diverse collection of panelists. The evolution has not gone unnoticed by longtime attendee Rebecca Throne, former head of ticketing for the Burning Man Project. She says, “SXSW 2024 was the first year that there was a real appetite for programming related to ticketing, which was exciting. Since there has been so much media attention on ticketing this past year — and there is so much pending ticketing legislation — there was more of an interest than ever. Over the past 10 years I’ve participated with SXSW, I never before felt that a ticketing-centric session would make the cut and instead focused on exploring the cultural aspects of live events — scaling culture, creating emotional experiences, etc. But 2024 was primed for it.”
In all, there were more than 20 ticketing session proposals submitted, and the two aforementioned sessions made the cut. Throne says she was really pleased to see that the two sessions offered “were deeper dives into something that came up in the ‘Music & Tech Mashup’ session I was a part of in 2023 — really working to demystify the live entertainment ticketing ecosystem so people can make informed choices. So many of the hot button issues right now that the public is focused on are deeply misunderstood. And that’s not because the public is senseless. It’s because the ticketing industry has been entirely opaque for a very long time. It’s exciting to see steps towards that changing.”
“Fan-First Solutions for Fair Ticketing in Live Entertainment” was held first on March 11 at the Austin Convention Center. In 2023, many frustrated fans and even artists spoke out against what they saw as unfair practices in the ticketing industry. Amidst the outcries, organizations like the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) were recognized by President Biden for their commitment to eliminate junk fees. The SXSW session featured industry leaders, among them NIVA Co-Founder Danya Frank, who gave their thoughts on the importance of leading fan-first through upfront costs. The panelists, which also included Newport Festivals Foundation Director of Ticketing and Communication Deb Girard, closed by proposing solutions for keeping live experiences accessible and fair to all.
“The Cost of Admission & the Next Era of Ticketing” was held the following day at the convention center and addressed issues ranging from the primary purchase fees to secondary scalping to speculative sales that have brought the topic of ticketing into the halls of Congress. Panelists including See Tickets Vice President of Business Development Ravi Durga and Kinney Law P.C. Partner Christine Kinney discussed actionable emerging models and strategies that reflect and adapt to consumer trends. They also sought to provide solutions to deliver a more level playing field for artists and their fans that can help fight bots and speculative sales.
Throne marvels at how much SXSW has grown over the years. She considers herself a relative “late-comer,” having attended for the first time in 2014. “I can only imagine how it feels to people who’ve been attending since the early days,” she says. “It’s physically evident in the continuous construction of downtown Austin. Each year, there is a new high-rise hotel. Over the years, there have been different subject-specific ‘tracks’ that are presented at the conference. At one point, there was a sports track, and I found some ticketing content there. Seeing which tracks develop and evolve is an interesting way to chart the course of public interest.”
This marked Throne’s second year that she was invited to offer Mentor Sessions. “It’s a little like speed dating but with an expert in a field you are interested in,” she says. “Because it is designed to give as many people access to mentors as possible, the pace can feel a little hectic. People can sign up with you for any reason. So, it is fascinating to meet them and learn why they signed up for a session with you.”
She continues, “As a mentor, you don’t have visibility in advance into who has signed up for your sessions. I’ve had people sign up to talk about approaches to ticketing their cultural event, Burning Man, specific ticketing platforms, and even things that have very little to do with ticketing like artist management. It’s fascinating. My goal is always to identify what their primary driver was for signing up and do my best to speak to it. Most often that means I’m pointing them to other resources that will help them go deeper in the direction they are interested in — websites, books, thought leaders, etc.”
In the past, Throne acknowledges that SXSW was not always the most obvious fit for ticketing professionals. For years, she herself struggled to find ticketing-specific content. “But the reality is, the thing that makes SXSW unique is that it is intentionally intersectional and interdisciplinary not only in the programming offered at the conference, but the fact that it is a conference, a music festival and a film festival all happening simultaneously. Whether it’s attending sessions about emerging technology, trends in culture and live entertainment, strategic foresight, or any number of other topics, you will find relevant through-lines that broaden your perspective and enable you to serve your organization in a richer way.”
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