South by Southwest

South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas, United States. It began in 1987 and has continued growing in both scope and size every year. In 2017, the conference lasted for 10 days with the interactive track lasting for five days, music for seven days, and film for nine days. There was no in-person event in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Austin, Texas; in both years there was a smaller online event instead.

SXSW is run by the company SXSW, LLC, which organizes conferences, trade shows, festivals, and other events. In addition to SXSW, the company runs the conference SXSW EDU and the SXSW Sydney festival (from 2023, in Sydney, Australia) and co-runs North by Northeast in Toronto. It has previously run or co-run the events North by Northwest (1995–2001), West by Southwest (2006–2010), SXSW Eco (2011–2016), SXSW V2V (2013–2015), and the me Convention (2017–2019). In addition, a large number of other events, past and present, sometimes collectively referred to as "four-letter festivals", have been inspired by SXSW.

The Austin Convention Center in Downtown Austin functions as the "hub" of the festival; most events associated with the festival take place at venues in and around Downtown Austin.

In April 2021, Penske Media Corporation purchased a 50% stake in SXSW.