As my friends Natasha & Ashley and I make our way to our hotel room at 5am in the morning in a cab. The cab driver asks us. “Is this your first SXSW?” It wasn’t but we had to ask him “What makes you a veteran at SXSW then?” He responded: “About 6 minutes after you land.” Fav Moment number 7!

It was a good second year at SXSW. I love going to Interactive to hang out with all my tech & social media friends and then when the craziness hits with Music it’s a non-stop roller coaster and lucky if you can even get in a meal a day. This year we had 11 interviews and so many showcases, I’m lucky I only walked away with an injured wrist! Here are my 10 Fav Moments from SXSW 2010.

10. Meeting New People You Hope to Stay in Contact With. You meet so many new people at SXSW and share so many ideas you hope that when you exchange that business card, twitter handle, or foursquare contact you hope that you stay in contact.

9. Belgian Bomber at Jo’s & Coffee Bean Lattes. Lord knows I can’t survive without caffeine at SXSW and sometimes traveling a few miles on a bus to the nearest Coffee Bean or down to Jo’s on SoCo for a Belgian Bomber is worth the trip.

8. How VIP are you? Just because you have the badge doesn’t mean you can go in all the way. A lengthy discussion was had by a couple of guy friends late at night about how far each of them could go past the red velvet ropes. What BS you have to cook up to tell the bouncer to let you in and what tools or who you know comes in handy. I ended the discussion with just become a girl, it’s a lot easier!

7. Getting Educated by Cab Drivers. In that ride at 5am with Natasha & Ash we discovered that Austin has a day to celebrate Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. That doesn’t make Austin “weird” it makes them “awesome!”

6. Josh Giggling Like a School Girl. Guys can deny it all they want but lets face it you crush on girls more than girls crush on guys sometimes. It’s always funny watching my friend Josh interview Lights because we all know he has a major crush on her and turns red every time she catches him in an embarrassing moment.

5. Are you on Foursquare? In the 11+ interviews we had during Music we had to ask music artists & bands since Foursquare was such a huge hit during Interactive if they “Check In” and yeah ummm we got a lot of confused faces.



4. Talking Camera Pron with Asteroids Galaxy Tour. One of my favorite interviews was with Mette from The Asteroids Galaxy Tour. Afterwards she asked me what I was shooting with, umm it’s not too often artists talk camera pron with you. What was even more cool was she introduced us to Hipstamatic. Ash couldn’t stop using it all day.



3. Uhh Cold Weather Exists in Austin? It rained a couple of days in Austin but was even more crazy was the extreme cold weather my last day in Austin. 43 degrees..REALLY!?!?



2. An Opportunity Missed by Others is an Opportunity Gained for Me. Like I said before just because you have the badge doesn’t mean squat! Security was being super strict with who they were letting beyond the barriers for pictures during the Metric & Muse showcase at Stubbs. Somehow one of the security guards was misinformed and let all the other photographers to the other side of the stage. Once Metric hit the stage security let me in and I ended up being 1 out of 6 out of 40 photographers to shoot since the other 36 photographers were led in the wrong direction. There were a lot of angry photographers.



1. Ouch My Wrist! They always say if you don’t end up literally dead after SXSW then you survived. Well, I didn’t die but I did injure my wrist after hours of carrying my camera I had to go to urgent care the next day and wear a splint. “I got into a fight” or “Too much fist pumping while rocking out” was always a great story.

Until next year Austin! Only this time no cold weather please…Thanks!