Interactive Festival

The Interactive Festival spans 7 tracks with sessions hosted from Friday, March 9 to Thursday, March 15.

Interactive Festival tracks include: Brands and Marketing, Code and Programming, Design, Health, Intelligent Future, Style and Workplace. In addition to the many learning opportunites provided by workshops, panels and sessions, attendees can also take part in a variety of compelling evening networking experiences.

Panels make up the largest portion of interactive sessions at 30.7%, followed by solo speaker sessions at 17.5%.

SXSW will host 708 total interactive sessions at this year's festival.

Interactive Sessions by Day

SXSW Interactive is a great opportunity to learn about new innovations, ways to personally grow and network. Check out the SXSW schedule to see conference sessions being held during the festival.

Brands Code and Programming Design Health Intelligent Future

Interactive Top Features

Saturday, March 10 features the most interactive sessions during SXSW 2018, at 123 sessions.

The Brands track has the most sessions during the interactive festival, at 155 sessions.

Two Interactive Keynotes are planned, featuring philanthropist Melinda Gates and New York Times bestselling author, Esther Perel. There are four Convergence Keynotes with Ta-Nehisi Coates, William Hurley, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and VR expert Nonny de la Pena.

The Buzz this year

Interactive session titles were analyzed to find the most common topics. View the most frequent words being talked about in this year's panels.

Music Festival

The Music Festival takes place from Monday, March 12 to Sunday, March 18, and includes 5 conference tracks and hundreds of artists across multiple genres performing in bars, clubs, parks, hotels and more across Austin.

In 2017, 2,085 total acts from 63 countries performed for 167,800 attendees at 104 music stages. This year, 1,846 acts have been announced and can be previewed on SXSW's official Spotify Playlists, YouTube Music Video playlist, and SXSWfm channel on Mixcloud.

Music Beyond the Borders

Artists from 61 countries are coming to the music capital of the world to share their music. From across the US, 1,313 artists will perform. The next five countries with the most artists are the United Kingdom at 102; Canada at 96; Australia at 46; Germany at 24 and Mexico at 24. Hover over the countries on the map below to see how many artists will be playing from across the world.

Main Music Genres

Alt Country, Americana, Avant / Experimental, Bluegrass, Blues, Classical, Country, Dance, DJ, Electronic, Folk, Funk, Gospel, Hip-Hop / Rap, Indie Folk, Jazz, Latin, Latin Hip Hop, Latin Indie, Latin Pop, Latin Rock, Latin Urban/Reggaeton, Metal, Pop, Punk, R & B, Reggae, Rock, Singer-Songwriter, Ska, Soul, Spoken Word, Tejano, World.

Secondary Music Genres

Acoustic, African, Afro Pop, Afro Punk, Alt Country, Alternative, Ambient, Americana, Avant / Experimental, Bluegrass, Blues, Caribbean, Classic Rock, Classical, Comedy, Country, Cumbia, Dance, Death Metal, Disco, Doom Metal, Dream Pop, Dub / Dancehall, Dubstep, Electro Tropi, Electronic, Emo, Flamenco, Folk, Freestyle, Funk, Fusion, Gangsta, Garage, Indie Rock, Hip-Hop, Indie Pop, Hip-Hop / Rap, R & B, Pop, Psychedelic, Soul, Rock, Singer-Songwriter, Post-Punk, Trap, House / Techno, Synthpop, Punk, World, Shoegaze, Jazz, Neo Soul, New Wave, Southern Hip-Hop, Grime, Instrumental, Post-Rock, Stoner, Grunge, Nerdcore, Pop Punk, Reggae, Surf, J-Pop, K-Pop, Tropical, Lo-Fi, Noise, Southern Rock, Hard Rock, Orchestral, Power Pop, Roots, Traditional, Goth, Heavy Metal, Industrial, Math Rock, Metal, Pop Electro, Progressive, Hardcore, Reggaeton, Salsa, Zydeco, Honky Tonk, MPB, Nu Metal, Pop Rock, Rap, Regional, Techno, Thrash, Western Swing.

Music Sessions by Day

Music Festival conference tracks include: Making and Promoting Music; Music Culture and Stories; Music Industry; Sync, Stream and License and Touring and Live Experience.

Making and Promoting Music Music Culture and Stories Music Industry Sync Stream and License Touring and Live Experiences

What's playing this year

Artists from 35 different genres, such as rock, pop, and blues will play this year. Within those genres, 96 different subgrenres, such as dubstep, hard rock and soul will fill the ears of music goers.

Top five main music genres are rock with 423 artists, hip-hop/rap with 327 artists, pop with 169 artists, electronic with 168 artists and Americana with 79 artists.

Top five secondary music genres are hip-hop/rap with 152 artists, Indie rock with 173 artists, alternative with 157 artists, Indie pop with 94 artists and R & B with 71 artists.

Scrub along the bar chart to view how many artists from each genre will be playing at SXSW 2018.

Film Festival

The Film Festival takes place from Friday, March 9 to Saturday, March 17, and includes 3 conference tracks and film screenings, which aims to celebrate innovation and emerging talent from those behind and in front of the camera.

In 2017, 70,574 film festival attendees came out to view session panels and see 130 features and 171 short films screened, including, 4,100 attendees that came out for outdoor film screenings. Attendees this year will enjoy the same opportunites, connect with industry experts and enjoy SXSW's 2018 film lineup, which includes 44 films from first-time filmmakers, 86 world premieres, 11 North American premieres, and 5 U.S. premieres from 22 different film categories.

On the screen at SXSW

This year, 339 films across 33 different genres will be screened.

Top five film genres are documentary with 93 films, drama with 89 films, comedy at 68, music at 46 and experimental with 38 films.

Top three film categories with the most films being shown is virtual cinema with 27 films, narrative shorts with 23 and Texas high school shorts with 21.

Scrub along the bar chart to view how many films from each genre will be playing at SXSW 2018.

Film Sessions by Day

Film Festival conference tracks include: Entertainment Influencers, Film and TV Industry and Making Film Episodics.

Entertainment Influencers Film and TV Industry Making Film Episodics

Film Categories

24 Beats Per Second, Animated Shorts, Documentary Feature Competition, Documentary Shorts, Documentary Spotlight, Episodic, Festival Favorites, Global, Headliners, Independent Episodics, Midnight Shorts, Midnighters, Music Videos, Narrative Feature Competition, Narrative Shorts, Narrative Spotlight, Special Events, Texas High School Shorts, Texas Shorts, Title Design Competition, Virtual Cinema, Visions

Film Genres

Action, Adaptation, Animated, Biography, Comedy, Conference Title, Crime, Documentary, Drama, Episodic, Experimental, Family, Fantasy, History, Horror, LGBTQ, Mature/Adult, Music, Music Video, Musical, Mystery, Narrative Feature, Narrative Short, Other, Romance, Sci-Fi, Short Film, Sports, Student Project Title, Television Show, Thriller, War, Western