SXSW, or South By South West, or South By if you wear a beard and tight pants (for full effect punctuate with a long nasal sigh), was a God awful mass of humanity, and completely awesome. Mostly, I was not prepared. Mostly. My unpreparedness had nothing to do with my lack of membership in The Boy Scouts. I thought I had planned and packed accordingly: I had stuffed my backpack with everything I thought I would need to cover the event. My cargo shorts carried what I needed on me at all times. Though I am not a photographer, I borrowed an extra lens for my DSLR and purchased a bigger memory card and battery to snap as many pictures as possible. I had clean clothes and toiletries for the days I would be there. I even purchased snacks to tie me over should the day run long and I miss a meal. Looking back, when it came to stuff I was overly prepared. That was my first problem. Mental and physical preparedness was my second, and more important, problem. Easy mobility is the name of the game at SXSW. The reason: lines. There are lines for the movies. There are lines for the panels. There are lines to get into the lounges. There are lines to get into parties. There's even a line to get a better place to wait in line (more later). Lines are a badge of honor to Austinites, and I understand why. There's no VIP; everyone is equal. The problem is, after three or four lines the novelty wears off, and after a couple days all the lines smack of 1980's Communist Russia. In the organizers defense, they did mention that there would be lines in their SXSW 101 brochure. The mistake was mine; I misinterpreted their definition of a line. This is because I didnt understand the sheer magnitude of humanity that would be in attendance, and Im just considering the film people. SXSW is actually three (or four depending on how you look at it) festivals, all taking place at the same time. The events are staggered a few days, but for the majority of the 10 days, everything is happening all at once. Therefore, to get a decent seat I had to be in line at least an hour before whatever I was going to attend. Because of my ignorance my first day's schedule was trashed. After a whole day of running around and just missing this or that panel, I finally got in line to see Evil Dead. A grueling hour and half later I was in my seat wishing I had a chainsaw to remove my throbbing feet so they could go terrorize someone else. Day two and three were similar. They were better as I was more knowledgeable about how things worked, but I still was in over my head. I changed my schedule around, losing a great deal of things I wanted to attend. Most of what I wanted to do was either scheduled at the same time, or so close that I would make it in time. All told, I made it to the movies I wanted to see: Evil Dead, Much Ado About Nothing, Mud and Big Ass Spider! I never made it to any of the panels because the Q&As after the movies put me over time to get in line. I tried a couple times, but after two Theres no more room, sir. I quit trying. I never made it to any of the parties, either. After a while the lines are just so demoralizing that if I saw one I would turn around and head somewhere else. In the end, here is what I learned about attending SXSW...