So yesterday I headed off nice and early to Gatwick Airport for the first step in the trip to South by Southwest. For those unfamiliar, South by Southwest or SXSW as it’s more affectionately know (and takes a lot less time to type) is a technology / interactive, movie and music based festival in the town of Austin, Texas. I got to visit here late last year to visit Troublemaker Studios but that was only for one day so I’m very much looking forward to seeing what the city has to offer.
It’s all be rather made up as we’ve gone along in the last couple of weeks first of all being asked by Hewlett Packard (HP) if we wanted to go along to finding out that we’re going to be staying in a trailer park all sounded rather random but was an opportunity that we couldn’t say no to so here I am, currently sitting in my own HP branded trailer of which there are 12 in total writing this first blog post.
The journey over here was pretty seamless although trying to explain to US Homeland Security that I was going to be staying in a trailer park while I was here was rather amusing! Possibly the most exciting part of the trip was the free wifi provided by Delta Airlines on the stop-over from Atlanta to Austin. I’ve never been on a wifi-enabled plane before but suffice to say it was all rather exciting! Tweeting and Facebooking from 35 000 feet in the air seems completely bizarre but no doubt will be come the norm in years to come. It was quite amusing as 99% of the plane was heading off to SXSW and there wasn’t a seat occupied without someone on their laptop or iPad tapping into the free internet connection which was running like a dog but was too fun not to try!
The final stage of the journey was heading to the HP Trailer park. Obviously after traveling for the best part of a day, all I wanted to do was have a little sleep but if you turn up to the park right in the middle of HP’s Happy Hour (which runs from 6-8 every day during SXSW), it’s was not going to happen! The vibe was great and there must have been a 100 + people all mingling and getting into the festival spirit. If you’re free to come down one night please do!
So, in my trailer, HP equipped with a laptop and my very own email enabled printer which has it’s own address allowing me to email it from anywhere printing my pictures for when I arrive back. Pretty cool! I shall defo be making use of that over my time here!
The plan today is to work out what the heck is going on so if you see someone walking around looking English and lost, it’s probably me! Wish me luck!
