A sea of 50,000 people crowded into a convention center and spilled out into the street. Music performed on over 100 different stages blasts in every direction. Among the chaos are some of the biggest names in entertainment: Sony and Spotify, Drake and George Strait. Next door, companies you’ve never heard of show off technology you didn’t know existed while J.J. Abrams promotes a new video-editing software and President Barack Obama speaks about American technology and innovation. This is South by Southwest, a film, technology and music convention held in Austin, Texas. Amongst all these powerful names and organizations, the biggest brands and the hottest new tech, were two members of the Wolfpack.
Students Charles Morse, a senior studying communication, and John Foley, a junior studying communication, both attended SXSW 2016, which lasted from March 11 to March 20. Despite being one of the largest music festivals in the world, the event is much more than one big concert, according to Morse and Foley.
“Last year, I got to go to SXSW to cover it for WKNC,” Morse said. “I saw not only the fun in it, which is obvious, but the academic value. They have sessions during the day that focus on the business side of the music industry in all sorts of ways — in PR, entrepreneurship, finance and management.”
Morse, the underground hip-hop/urban music director at NC State’s radio station, WKNC, said that he met other students from all across the country in his first year at the conference, including students from the University of Miami, Ohio State and Syracuse. Morse said his first trip to SXSW is also when he found out about the Student Initiative Program, a program which allows participants to get college credit for attending the conference as long as they participate in a certain number of educational seminars.
“I knew this was something I wanted to get NC State involved with,” Morse said. “That is one of the reasons that we formed WolfTrax, to have an entity to help us get into the Student Initiative Program.”
WolfTrax Music Group is an organization at NC State centered on helping promote and develop student music artists. Morse is the operations director at WolfTrax, and Foley is the organization’s secretary. The club attempted to organize a larger group of people from both WolfTrax and WKNC to attend this year’s conference, but due to scheduling issues, only Foley and Morse were able to attend.
Foley said he wants to find a career in promoting artists. Morse said he plans to go to law school after he graduates and study entertainment law. Both Foley and Morse said attending SXSW this year taught them a lot about the industries they are interested in, and they were able to meet professionals in their respective fields of interest.
“I went to a lot of forums on promotion, and they were the most helpful ones,” Foley said. “Probably the most useful one was ‘How to Get Heard When No One Has Heard About You,’ which was all about how to contact press, mainly blogger writers, with your music and get them to feature you.”
Foley said that he attended many more seminars with topics such as creating a strong YouTube presence, 2016 music technology and promotion through social media, which he said taught the values of using social media outlets like Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram effectively to promote one’s image.
Morse said he wants WolfTrax to help students interested in going to SXSW connect with the Student Initiative Program but that a student does not need to be a member of the program or of WKNC to apply, as long as his or her majors in some way relate to the event. Foley and Morse said that their majors don’t have to directly relate to music or business because a large section of SXSW is focused entirely on emerging technology and technology entrepreneurship.
Morse and Foley did not attend the conference through the Student Initiative Program because NC State has not officially accepted the program at this time, and at least four students are required to attend in the first year.
“We’re in the process of finding out if NC State will allow students to get college credit for attending,” Morse said. “We need to go. SXSW is ‘think and do’ materialized. There is such a focus on entrepreneurship. There’s absolutely no reason for NC State not to get us in on this.”
Morse and Foley recommend students interested in the Student Initiative Program research the program for themselves, and if they like the program, they should ask their department heads about it. Morse’s coverage of the event can be found on WKNC’s blog.
Nas preforms at South by Southwest. Students Charles Morse, a senior studying communication, and John Foley, a junior studying communication, both attended SXSW 2016, which lasted from March 11 to March 20.
