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Tuesday, March 19, 2013

when SXSW kicks your ass...

this past week and a half was SXSW, which, for the uninitiated, is South By SouthWest.  it's a city-wide festival in Austin, which is a great deal of music absolutely everywhere (and a lot of it free or cheap), film showings, and also a conference full of tech-y stuff.

apart from all the Stuff Going On Downtown, and All the Ridiculous Traffic Nonsense And Bullshit, we had four days of photobooth gigs.  in a row.

Jesus Fuck.

three of those days were at the convention center.
a word about doing gigs at convention centers:  they are HUGE, massive places.  they have loading docks, and you must go through them.  there's no way you're going through the front door, which is the average photobooth gig's usual MO.  so, since we go to all these gigs in the previous post's pictured truck, we sometimes have a bit of difficulty getting INTO places like convention centers, since we don't have an Obvious Work Vehicle.  this requires Loading Permits, and other Assorted Annoyances that we usually don't deal with.

thankfully, dealing with the Austin convention center was surprisingly easy.  i was gratified to find out that i didn't have any Issues with loading in or out.

our first gig was a 3 day event, in the tech-y showroom.


lookee!  an actual picture of one of our photobooths.  i usually don't put them on here, so as to not jeopardize our employment, and such.  but since you can't SEE our company name...


 i had lots of fun with these guys - they were screen printing, and so i got to watch them churn out some really excellent prints.

ignore the scribbling, i'm preserving the anonymity of our customers, so as to Not Get Sued.


but seriously, how cool is this?

they were making these prints:


during this gig we were SERIOUSLY busy... i had one pee break during the first day.  ONE.
i left every day hungry enough to eat the photobooth, since i didn't have time for meal breaks.

there were a ton of fun things to see at this convention, when i did finally get a chance to step away from the booth... see if you can spot why this sign gave me a serious giggle.


hehe.  hehe.  "ass typing."  now i'm seriously imagining someone trying to type on this sucker.  WITH THEIR ASS.  and failing, obviously.  bad ass typing, indeed.

grammar.  it's important, yo.


this was an excellent backdrop for a booth.  i don't have a clue what they did there, but i had to snap a photo.  the artist's name is in the bottom lower corner, for those who are curious to check out his/her work.


this guy was roaming around.  i have no fucking clue what they did either, but... SQUAREHEAD.

the second gig we had was at a bar, where not only were our clients Truly Excellent, but they also gave me four FREE drink tickets.  FOUR.  FREE.  DRINKS.  i loved them so hard.  


traffic during SXSW is a fucking nightmare, and so is parking.  for four days of working, i spent $60 in parking alone.  and that was with one day of me not having to park, since Matt gave me a ride.  i know.  that's crazy.  when not parking, i probably spent two hours a day getting in and out of the city... and i live 15 minutes away from downtown.

for the rest of SXSW i did what any reasonable non-working person would do, and Went Out and Got Drunk.  i met lots of random people, brought a full-size hookah to my favorite bar, went to a small party that was literally in a parking space in a high rise, flirted with some hot ladies, and also Saw Amanda Fucking Palmer, for free.  she brought a lot of cool bands with her.


these girls ranged from 12 - 18, were all sisters, and were fantastic.  look them up - they're called Von Grey.  i highly recommend them.  another one of the Bands of Awesome were called Andy Suzuki and The Method.  also definitely worth a listen.  and of course, Amanda Fucking Palmer put on a great show.  if you haven't heard her, or heard of her, check her out.  she is AMAZING.

by the way?  the absolute BEST place to stop downtown for free bathroom facilities is also one of the prettiest - the Capitol building.  breeze through the metal detectors, take a few pics, and hightail it into the bathroom.


also.  did you know that you can bring pocketknives under six inches long into the Capitol building?  i asked a State Trooper to be sure, and his response was "sure, as long as you show it to the security guards, and don't go and wave it at people."

only in Texas.