The venerable South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival turns 25 this year. The conference has grown considerably from its humble roots as a 700-attendee music event to today’s two-week music, film and interactive behemoth that attracts greater than 36,000 people to Austin.
We found a huge infographic that illustrates the festival’s storied history, starting back in 1986 when friends Roland Swenson and Louis Jay Myers first approached Louis Black and Nick Barbaro, founders of the alternative newspaper the Austin Chronicle, pitching the idea of starting up a music festival.
And so the graphic goes, packed with events and happenings from every year since. Just like SXSW, this graphic is sprawling, larger-than-life, and sometimes contains oddities that are hard to believe. For instance, not only is SXSW the home of one of the first “Twitter riots,” it was the venue for the U.S. premiere of a film that went on to become an Academy Award Best Picture winner. Not wanting to miss out on that kind of cool stuff, we have an event there this year, too.
In the spirit of SXSW, this graphic is so large, you’ll need to interact with it to view it. Might I suggest usingPicasa Photo Viewer (or your favorite photo viewer)? After you download this graphic in its original 9238 x 8063 size, you can then view it by zooming in to its various parts by simply moving your mouse wheel.
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