PLENARY SXSW Trade Show Q Minneapolis Convention Center Q Face Painting & Body Art Convention
PRE CON ‘Convergence’s Coming of Age’
EVENT: South by Southwest (SXSW) began as a music festival in 1987, and since then has evolved into a series of film, interactive-media, and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring in Austin. Each of the three parts runs relatively independently, with different start and end dates. The brand-new SXSW Trade Show: The Exhibition for Creative Industries is also now a part of the SXSW mix. 2011 MEETING (MARCH 14–17): Taking place at the Austin Convention Center, the SXSW Trade Show bridges the SXSW Film & SXSW Interactive Conferences (March 11–15) with SXSW Music (March 16–20). By combining three creative industries into one exhibition, SXSW expects to draw 35,000 registrants and 350 exhibitors.
SHOWPLACE: The SXSW Trade Show combines three creative industries into one.
THERE’S A MEETING FOR THAT? Living Canvas
FACE PAINTING & BODY ART CONVENTION: The Face Painting and Body Art Association (FPBAA) is an international community of face- and body-painting artists whose annual convention — billed as a family-friendly and educational conference — takes place this month, Feb. 27–March 4, at Harrah’s Las Vegas. Classes include hands-on instruction in body painting (1–4), from sports to medieval and mythological designs, as well as busi- ness advice for face- and body-painting artist–entrepreneurs on marketing and website creation. For more information, visit www.fpbaconvention.com.
CHALLENGES: Over the nine days of SXSWeek, SWSX schedules and produces more than 5,000 events. In addition to the Trade Show, SXSW of- fers five other exhibitions — ScreenBurn Arcade (gaming), Style X (indie-designer fashion show), Gear Alley Expo (new music equipment), Texas Guitar Show (buy-sell-trade music equipment), and Flatstock (concert-poster collectors). With all that’s going on, it’s easy to see why SXSW Sales Manager Ron Suman’s big- gest challenge is “logistics, logistics, logistics.” Suman, who is responsible for planning the Trade Show and all of SXSW’s sales and mar- keting assets, said: “We strive to make certain that each and every participant, from registrant to filmmaker to speaker to exhibitor to musi- cian, has the same oppor- tunity to experience all that SXSW offers. Our aim is to qualify the statement that ‘If you don’t go home inspired, enlightened, energized, connected, and entertained, then you didn’t go to SXSW.’” INITIATIVES: For the first time in SXSW’s history, the registrants and exhibitors of the three industries repre- sented by SXSW — film, inter- active, music — will be united under one roof for four days. “At SXSW, we’ve been giving the word ‘convergence’ a workout since 1995,” Suman continued on page 18
GROUP SHOT
on the Roof
Up
SUNNY CONVERSION: The Minneapolis Convention Center recently completed installation of an array of 2,613 solar
photovoltaic panels on its roof. Directly connected to the facility’s internal electrical system,
the panels produce 750,000 kWh of
renewable electricity per year — enough
energy to supply 15 to 20 percent of the
center’s daytime use and 5 to 8 percent of its overall use, and equivalent to
offsetting 539 metric
tons of carbon dioxide emissions (the amount given off by 60,587 gallons of gasoline). Minneapolis averages 2,800 hours of sunshine a year.