Austinist Gets You Ready For SXSW: Party, Party, Party, Cry!

Here's a situation that's all too common: it's mid-March and SXSW has taken over Austin, but you've been so busy with work and managed to ignore most of the party announcements buzzing around the internet for the past month. So you're stuck at the last minute, painfully hungover, digging through your inbox and a handful of websites to figure out just what parties to go to.

"Why can't someone just tell us what the cool things are?", you think to yourself. "And where the hell they are?"

Relax! This year, we've decided to take matters into our own hands, and today we're pleased as punch to unveil our Interactive Guide to SXSW Music, which you can check out by surfing on over to here:

[Austinist's Interactive Guide to SXSW Music]

A sample Austinist reader checking out what The Onion's cooking up for their day party.

• View what parties we're excited about, arranged by day. Our database includes bands performing, times, whether the party is open to the public or requires an RSVP, and more.
• Quickly and easily see what parties are close to one another, and where everything will be in general. It's important to know if a party or showcase is within stumbling distance of another, if you ask us.
• Get text reminders by adding an event to your Google Calendar. Simply click on the button, and the rest is taken care of! We strongly advise that you set up a Google Calendar if you haven't already.
• Take a closer look at all of the nifty flyer artwork, by clicking on the button where available
• Catch up on recent and past coverage that Austinist has done on SXSW. We want it to be super easy for you to access our profiles and interviews with showcasing bands like Architecture in Helsinki, Sondre Lerche, YACHT and more.

In the next week or so, we'll be adding these features and more:

• SXSW showcase information. Thanks to the lovely folks over at Eventful.com, we'll be able to point out a dozen or two of the really good showcases going on each night that we think you oughta check out.
• Breakfast Taco and BBQ indicators, so you can quickly spot where to get your next brisket and/or eggs-and-chorizo fix.

[Austinist's Interactive Guide to SXSW Music]

Surf on over, check it out, and tell us what you think. We'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions you might have, including additional features you think would benefit everyone.

Austinist's Interactive Guide to SXSW works in Internet Explorer 6+ and most versions of Firefox, but is not currently compatible with Safari. Firefox is recommended.