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Takeaway notes from SXSW 2022

By | Published on Friday 25 March 2022

SXSW

SXSW in Austin, Texas is perhaps the world’s biggest conference of its type. It offers daily talks, panels, and insights on a range of tech, cultural, film, comedy, and music topics followed each night by premieres, parties, happy hours, and hundreds of live music performances across the city. After two of the most difficult years for the music industry and breaking artists, during which the digital landscape evolved at alarming speed, 2022’s SXSW felt like one of the most important events they have ever curated.

While it’s money well spent if you’re there, it can be a costly enterprise; with flights, accommodation, your delegate pass, and spending cash. So we’ve aimed to highlight some of the key topics and takeaways crucial for DIY artists and those with an eye on what’s next, for those that couldn’t make it this year. 

The metaverse 

The majority of conversation at this year’s SXSW seemed to be rooted in some form or another in the metaverse. If you needed a cue as to just how big this is going to be over the next ten years, you only need to look at the amount of time and money being invested in this across the conference.

Anybody that’s been working in the music or marketing industries for over ten years will know that what we do now is incomparable to what we did then. MySpace and sign up sheets at gigs, is now TikTok trends and pixel tracking. The wave of change has been subtle and unstoppable, and ten from now we’ll be standing in the metaverse looking back at what we did in 2022 with the same sense of misty nostalgia. 

One thing is different though. Nobody really predicted how big social media would impact our digital lives. The two-way street of constantly creating and consuming, forming a personal ecosystem that then curates our online experience – often without us even knowing – is now well understood. We can now look ahead with more of an understanding of what to expect.  We’ve had to learn very quickly how to be responsible, bring in legislature, protect our mental health, and control the beast that we – along with a few tech giants – let loose. Going into the metaverse we’re a little wiser though. That’s key. Something which came up time and time again during talks is how the metaverse, built on web3 and the blockchain, offers us a chance to approach this without the naivety that we sped into social media thirteen-some years ago. 

Balancing security, privacy, and creativity will be a tough bump in the road. As we spend more time conversing in our digital space as our avatars, we have the opportunity to create shared experiences unlike anything we have now. Your lens on the world will no longer be based on geography or status in the real world, but what platform you’re on. As an educational tool, we’ll be submerged in the brutal details of world wars and key moments in history, helping form different viewpoints. We’ll live out our fantasies regardless of our physical abilities. As artists we’ll be creators in a landscape that’s far more open, celebrating inclusivity and accessibility. In our daily lives many people will reassess their work / home / travel balance, opting more and more for a virtual workspace.

There’s a lot of potential to be unlocked as the technology evolves in the next decade. So while it is allowed to bloom, we as curators and artists must be careful to describe the metaverse – not prescribe it. Learn from our missteps into social media. We also have the responsibility of pushing on governments and NGOs to hold this new era accountable from the start. We need to be thinking now about how we get our communities ready. Arming our fans, customers, and collaborators with the right tone, and shepherd them into the policies, credibility and creatively vital to a better web3 experience than web2. Be transparent with your ticket and music buyers, and begin mentally transitioning from content filtration to better, more honest content sharing. Don’t be passive as this all kicks off over the coming years. Take control of it, learn all you can, get involved, and build a better internet. 

NFTs

Understanding the metaverse is crucial to understanding NFTs, before you jump on the bandwagon and release something for release’s sake.

The art world has been leading the way on NFT’s, which many people may find surprising. Artists after all create… art… in a very real sense. The art world though is one of the hardest, most impenetrable industries to get a hook into, which is why this new model and way of thinking has been of huge benefit. 

Speaking to artists at SXSW, while they admit there have been some scams they also insist that NFTs give them more power over ownership, while being an affordable and accessible route to supporters. Some artists have created bespoke digital assets to their physical work, offering another dimension for patrons. They’re regarded, in a traditional sense, like collections. Themed bodies of work that synergise, framing well in a digital gallery. That’s one aspect that many people are getting wrong with NFTs right now, as bands release a one-off gif in NFT form because that’s what another band did. We must think of NFTs, applied like this, in this vein. There should be a purpose. Then get yourself on Discord and Twitter, the platforms of choice for the NFT art communities, and search for #NFTcommunity. See what people are saying, join those conversations, follow other’s work, and then contribute. The on-ramp to the art world is a lot easier now, but you still have to take it and not just helicopter drop your work from nowhere. Remember that web3 is about talking with people and not at people.

One final piece of good news on NFTs is that unlike the standard selling of art, you are privy to a percentage of every further sale along the blockchain. If your NFT is worth £10 million in the future, but you sell it now for £30, that’s not the end of your financial journey and compensation. 

This also somewhat translates to digital trends within the metaverse. If you’re the first person to create or do something unique in the metaverse blockchain, you will forever be part of that. Imagine if you were the first person in your school to wear your backpack with just one strap. How cool would it be if for generations to come, as every new kid followed, there was a little tag that let them know you were the first. Think about that for a minute. 

Your creativity 

The last two years might have seemed like the best of times and worst of times for creativity, but actually creativity has been on the decline since the 1990s. This has been fussed over and measured, taking into account how school exams have changed, Hollywood has dug into the abyss of sequels and reboots, the formulaic repurposing of IP across the creative spectrum, and even analysing chord structures in songs now compared to the 1960s. Only 5% of the top 200 streamed songs in 2021 were new releases, the other 95% being older tracks. TikTok trends encourage copying trends over new ideas. Even parody trends are pawed over, creating a generation of copiers rather than creators. Have we been devaluing creativity? We’ve certainly seen some drastic cuts to the arts. 

So what can we do? Our creativity is humanity’s best superpower. Here are five killer areas to focus on as artists and industry leaders:

1. The illusion of inspiration. Creativity is an act of will, so just make a start. Anybody that says that inspiration comes at any moment is making excuses. Just show up, set your times each day to focus on being creative. Show up every day. Be focused. Don’t wait for inspiration to randomly come – make it your job.

2. Consensus. Advertising is currently dominated by the data and algorithms that define our online journey. We’re fed back what we want to see and hear, which is what you need to step out from. Remove yourself from your comfort zone. That’s something which especially feels more difficult as we get older and feel safer in what we’re doing. Find your point of view, be more punk and mischievous, and allow your creativity to be a mashup of your instincts. Be the outsider and explore the edges. Do not look to just fit what else is already there. 

3. Fear. A lot of people don’t lack ideas, but a culture of support. Celebrate and encourage risk-taking within your company and community, and seek out that support for yourself. Offer a daft award at the end of the year in your company or band for the most ridiculous idea that somebody’s put forward, regardless of how it paid off. Celebrate the risk-takers, not the result. 

4. Complexity. We consume so much – the economy of retention has pulled us. So be simple, and seek to reduce. The “Shot On Apple” advertising campaign you’ve probably seen on billboards for example is one of the most simple and beautiful product adverts ever devised. It’s just the product, a slogan, and it’s aspirational as sin.

5. Laziness of rigour. Have pride in detail even if nobody else sees it. This is as true for musicians as it is for managers or marketers. Good enough is not enough. Stick your neck out and have pride in what you’ve achieved. Be innovative, and not derivative. 

SXSW is a fantastic opportunity to meet like-minded people, explore these avenues, ask questions, take notes, and then have a beer at the end of the day. Visit www.sxsw.com for next year’s conference details. 



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