So I just got back to work from SxSW 2015. I think I started going to SxSW in 2007 or 2008. I can’t remember. It was very shortly after I moved to the Central Texas area from Dallas. Anyway, SxSW 2015 was a little subdued this year, because of hard financial times for certain promoters, legal crackdowns, bad politics, and also the tragedies of the previous year’s negligent tourist manslaughter. It was still fun and I actually enjoyed the festival more when it was at a manageable level than the outright insanity of previous years.

But there’s still a lot of newbs out there fuckin’ up. Not doing it right, and having the kind of bad times that leave them feeling like they didn’t get the most out of their Austin experience. And that’s why, as a SxSW semi-veteran (I wasn’t there before it was cool but I was there at the peak of its cool), I am compiling a list of do’s and don’ts for the future, and people who might be new to or unfamiliar with Austin. These are my honest suggestions, as a local, of how I have learned to do SxSW over the years, often to a point of flat out refusing to do it any other way. Your mileage may vary with differing tastes, but these are my suggestions for you to dutifully follow, or cheerfully ignore.

1. Look for free stuff. You might not necessarily need a badge

Or a wristband, or whatever all-access thing that costs hundreds of dollars. I’ve personally never felt the need to purchase a band. There have been a few years where I shared one with someone or one was provided to me. If you are into really slickly-produced, mainstream acts, and super-secret, l33t private parties, a badge might come in handy, but if you like truly underground artists doing it for the love, desperate to perform well because that performance represents a chance for them to make an impact and establish themselves, then a badge might not really be necessary, because those acts will probably be performing at all the free shows surrounding the actual festival. These shows take place mostly on the East side of I-35.

There are also many free parties with free drinks and free merchandise. These are usually sponsored by some big company, or maybe even just a local mom and pop. Most of the exhibits and expos in public spaces like the Austin Convention Center are free and open to the public. There is plenty to do if you plan ahead and RSVP, which brings me to my next tip:

2. Plan ahead and RSVP

Locals start their hunt for free stuff and start RSVPing for South By usually beginning in January. These events are planned out and paid for the preceding year, so it’s easy to get a jump on them. Free parties can often be exclusive to the first people who signed up for them. An early RSVP can sometimes be worth more than a badge or wristband.

Keep abreast of South by Southwest events on Facebook. Another good site is do512.org, or ShowlistAustin.com for seeing all the stuff that’s going on in Austin and being promoted by local venues, most of which is totally free. You can also read a lot about what is going on in the Austin Chronicle, the local free (advertising- rather than subscription-based) paper. Also, be in touch with independent media, because that’s the heart of SxSW, and you can profit immensely by being friendly with it. Private indie blogs/zines can keep you informed of what’s going on, often in real time.

For instance, in 2014, I wanted to be sure I saw a punk band called Cerebral Ballzy play, because they are one of my current favorites. They played several shows that year. Some of them were wristband-only and others weren’t. I didn’t have a wristband, but I still was able to see them play thanks to a fansite called Cerebral Ballzine. Often you can Google “yourband + Austin + SxSW + currentyear”, and it will pull up a website that clearly informs you of all the shows that band is playing that year. Though some bands have secret shows and only tell ‘cool’ people about them, we call those people ‘elitist mainstream assholes’.

To supplement the Official SxSW Line-up, scheduling apps like austin2015.sched.org will help you add events to your calendar, so you can plan it to where you always know what of your interest is going on at any given minute when you are at the festival, thus providing multiple entertainment options. Which brings me to my next point:

3. Have internet on your phone

Hopefully at some point, the extra bandwidth provided by Google Fiber will allow Austin to set up dependable public Wi-Fi. But for now at least, public wifi and free hotspot coverage is pretty unreliable, especially during a big festival when everyone and their dog is trying to use it all at once. So my advice is to have an internet plan on your phone, or even just use mobile internet incidentally if you have to, because having internet on your phone at SxSW is crucial, and worth whatever charges you may incur from your cellualar provider. You NEED the internet for more options and show times and directions to the next venue and stuff like that. Also you can use your phone to RSVP on-the-fly for free stuff you all of a sudden decide you want to attend, because it looks or sounds cool from the outside, walking by.

4. Don’t use your car

There are many modes of transport you can use for South By, but now that I’ve biked the fest, I flat out refuse to do it any other way. A car is a liability at SxSW. Parking is $20-$50 if you can even find it close to your events! Traffic is terrible during the festival, and the last thing the city needs is one more car on the road. You will be doing a great service to both the local community and yourself traversing the festival with a bike, which you can easily rent from one of many sidewalk rental agencies. Keep in mind that SxSW takes places in several dozen buildings which are spread out over the entire city. Sometimes, you have to traverse the whole town just to get from one show to another, and the absolute BEST way to do that is on a bike. It seriously gives you so much freedom.

While everyone else is parking and walking and paying out the ass for Uber or whatever, you are zipping down the street, weaving in and out of stopped traffic, confidently pulling right up to your event, then when the show turns out to be not as cool as you had hoped, or you kinda wanna see what else is going on, you can easily go do that on your bike. You aren’t stuck anywhere, or too tired to escape. Every time I’ve ever walked SxSW, I’ve had shinsplints by the end of it. It’s too much walking. Don’t do that to yourself. Austin has abundant bike paths, and motorists are pretty respectful of cyclists because of the college. Pretty sure the town is tolerant of skate-boarders as well, or at least I hope it is. Not really my thing, so I don’t know firsthand, but I don’t see why not.

Also, you can put your bike on the bus in Austin, which greatly increases your bike range. Capitol Metro is subsidized by the college, and is highly reliable and timely. If you miss a bus, you generally don’t have to wait more than 15-30 minutes for the next one, and you can meet great people on the bus! You can download Capitol Metro’s app to your phone, read their schedule and routes, buy a week-long pass, and use your phone to pay your fare. A word to the wise: You may want to buy the hardcopy pass from a local H-E-B grocery store at a discount to regular fare, because when you buy the phone pass, you can sometimes run your phone out of batteries and not have a bus pass that you paid for. Most bus drivers are cool about letting you slide in a situation like that, though, especially late at night.

Also, some buses (such as the 412 ‘E Bus’ from Downtown to West Campus) do not require a pass or ID. They are for drunk college kids to have a safe ride home. The buses in Austin run on one schedule during the day, then a night owl schedule with different routes and slightly reduced services administered by a skeleton crew in the wee hours of the morning, so keep that in mind and plan accordingly. If it’s 2 AM, and you want to go home but don’t know how, go to the bus depot on the Northwest corner of Congress and 6th, and ask the bus driver which bus you need to take to get where you are going.

There is also the Car2Go service, which is free or low cost to sign up for, and can really come in handy sometimes, if you happen to see one and you have one of those cards in your wallet. Be careful how you drive those cars, though, as they are electronically monitored, and I’ve already been banned from the service for speeding and driving in the ghetto, both of which they seem to frown upon.

Finally, if you are desperate for a ride, directions, or suggestions on where to go, or it’s the end of the week and you are just tired of carrying yourself, support the local pedicabbers, who happen to be some really cool and bad-ass local anarchists. Great people to guide you and be on your side, if you ask me. People you can be proud to support with your business, because they bust ass to ethically make a dollar.

5. Venture off the beaten path

So many people make the mistake of staying on 6th street during the festival, or only going to ‘official’ events. The truth is that many local businesses do stuff for South By, all over town! So visit a dive bar like 04 Lounge on South Congress, South Lamar, South 1st, Ben White, go into East Austin on 6th, don’t forget the main UT Drag on Guadalupe with cool venues like Hole in the Wall and Spider-House, and there is even stuff in North Campus off of North Loop, which is a cool neighborhood that has an anarchist bookstore: Monkey Wrench Books. There is stuff around Franklin’s barbecue and East Side Pies in the hood. There are all the thrift stores on Burnet Street. There are the Craftsman-house restaurants on Rainey Street. There is even stuff going on North of 183 in the yuppie suburbs! So don’t limit yourself to West 6th. You’re missing a lot by doing so.

Or maybe you just want to chill with friends at a local coffee shop far away from the festival. My favorite local coffee shops are Cherrywood, Summer Moon, Irie Bean, Monkey’s Nest, Strange Brew, and Halcyon. I wish I could put Ruta Maya and Flipnotics on this list, but sadly, they both recently went under, which is a damn shame, because they are great spaces, and I hope someone with a lot of money brings them back soon!

6. Take days off

Don’t feel the need to go out and party every single night during South By. Due to the eclectic nature of the billed performances, there will be days when there just isn’t anything going on that you really want or need to see. So rest your feet. Take a valium, smoke some of the local bud, and sleep it off. Don’t run yourself ragged with 10 days of perpetual motion. Plan some downtime. If you are doing stimulants (I’m looking at you, EDM people), space out your days so you aren’t on them the whole time. Otherwise, you will return to work on Monday a burnt-out schizo. Don’t turn South By into a job, or something to overdo. Relax and take it easy. Only the pettiest of people would call you a ‘poseur’ for missing something or not being there the whole time, especially if sleep is more important at the moment. This is supposed to be a relaxing vacation. Go see the greenbelt or take a dip in Barton Springs.

7. Put film festival events and conferences in between partying at shows

Remember that Austin isn’t just a music festival, but also a film festival, and places like Alamo Drafthouse, Dobie Mall Theatre, and other impromptu movie showcases are often free or low-cost to get in, show an eclectic mix of films new and old, and can expose you to a different facet of the crowd, who traditionally tend to cynically or comically react to films with commentary during the film. You’re walking around, getting blasted by loud music, exerting yourself by dancing or moshing at these shows… wouldn’t it be nice to sit down in an air-conditioned room for an hour or two, and watch a movie between shows? It can be a great way to recuperate without getting the feeling like you are missing something or are not at the festival you made all this effort and expenditure to attend.

There are also really cool meetings covering topics like web services, social media, digital art and music production techniques, social justice politics, and lots of low physical (but high mental) impact stuff like that. These are the best places to meet and actually get to know other festival-goers through conversation in an environment where you can actually hear eachother.

8. Don’t miss the interactive portion

There’s a free arcade the first weekend. It’s usually inside the Palmer Event Center near Auditorium Shores. Totally worth walking through at least once, if only to see the expos of the newest video games. If you are into sound, video, internet, or any other kind of multimedia, there are plenty of conferences going on surrounding the interactive part of the fest.

9. Don’t pay for drinks!

Bring a flask! Or go to one of the many places where some big company is handing out free alcohol. I can understand wanting to support the local bartender, or being a captive audience and just wanting a beer at that moment, no matter the cost, but don’t blow big money on alcohol at South By. Save it for food, drugs, and admissions!

10. Be very wary of who you buy drugs from

To be totally honest, you never know what you’re getting when you buy off the street. That white powder could be meth, coke, molly, 2-CI or Special K. Remember that most local dealers have a bag they sell to their friends out of, and a bag they use to rip off tourists, cops, and college kids who don’t know any better. So don’t be the tourist who gets ripped off, and ends up in the ER from a counterfeit or impure drug overdose. Know your sources and use reagent kits to test what you buy, if at all possible.

11. Be very careful about drug use in public.

Remember, this is still Texas. Yes, Austin is cooler than most places. But it’s still in Texas, and they will still REALLY put you in pound-me-in-the-ass prison over stupid drug shit. Don’t come on vacation and leave on probation. Just this past year I saw a black guy get pulled out of the crowd, handcuffed, and arrested, just for smoking a blunt on 6th. The cops sniffed him out and pounced. He might have even been a local. Don’t think it won’t happen to you, no matter what your skin color happens to be. You can still have a lot of fun at South By, you just need to be careful about it. Austin tolerates flaunting society’s conventions to a certain extent, but don’t overdo it. If you are going to dress and behave outlandishly, calling attention to yourself, don’t do it while carrying illegal substances. I’m not judgmental about drugs, personally, I just don’t like seeing heart-breaking Drug War scenes in the middle of what should be a fun festival for all.

12. Know all the venues

If I were new in town, these are the places I would check out first. But beware: some of the locals who frequent these places are shady con artists who consider it their inherent right to fleece the revolving-door college crowd. Keep in mind the venue genres aren’t set in stone during South By. You could see a disco act at a rock bar, a hip-hop act at a heavy metal bar, or impromptu jazz on the street-corner. An otherwise gay bar might be full of straight people during South By. But acknowledge that there are going to be those regular locals who always frequent that bar on Saturday, South By or no South By, and those are the indigenous presences you should tolerate.

Punk/metal venues: Red7, Mohawk, Hotel Vegas, Hole in the Wall, Beerland, Emo’s, Antone’s, Stubb’s, The Dirty Dog, Valhalla, and The Lost Well

Ravey EDM Clubs: Parish, Kingdom, Vulcan Gas Company, Barcelona, Empire Control Room and Garage, Plush, Karma, Republic, Bat Bar, Recess, Lanai Rooftop Lounge, Club Rio, and Geisha Room

13. Don’t wait in line

If SxSW 2014 taught us anything, it’s that waiting in line makes you sitting ducks for drunk drivers. What’s really sad about that, was that most of the people who got hit while waiting in that line in front of Mohawk, probably weren’t going to get in anyway. Even though they had wristbands. Because the venue was at legal capacity (or probably a bit over). They were basically waiting for people to leave, so that new patrons could enter. But no one is going to leave in the middle of a show, or right before the headliner. So it’s hopeless! But not a total loss. Either get there before everyone else does, or admit you got scooped, and move onto the next thing. Go where you can get in. During South By, there’s so much going on at once, there is always something else to do.

14. Eat truck food

Don’t think it’s bad food or unclean just because it comes from a truck. The trucks in Austin are licensed and inspected, and the purveyors are good people. The last thing they want is to make you sick. And they work hard for their money, and depend on revenue from things like the SxSW festival. Some of the best food in Austin comes from a trailer, and the trailers here represent a diverse spectrum of culinary awesomeness. If you ask me, the food is a feature of the festival on par with the music and film, and even if the prices are a little jacked up for the festival, they are still cheap compared to the everyday prices of a major metro like New York, San Francisco, or LA.

15. Support local businesses

If you need a glass piece in town, get it at a local smoke shop. If you need anything else, find a small little Mom and Pop to buy it from. Don’t visit Austin and then shop at a big box chain store while you’re there. Support the funky little boutiques. That’s some hipster’s dream there. The owner needs your business. Wal-Mart and Neiman Marcus don’t. If you support the local businesses, it will help allieviate local resentment about SxSW.

16. Respect our town!

SxSW puts a lot of wear and tear on the local infrastructure, and not all the locals benefit from the profits generated by the festival. So keep that in mind. Whether you are a guest in this town or a local, understand that some people might not be happy about the traffic, noise, and inflated prices the festival brings. Be kind to the people who serve you. Treat the local women respectfully. Don’t expect a cheap hook-up or one night stand in Austin. I mean, it happens, but Austin generally isn’t that kind of town. You very well could end up in a shotgun wedding after drunken screwing around at South By. It is still the South, after all. So leave no trace, and give back in proportion to what you have taken, and this will ensure that the roads, venues, people, and festival itself continue to get better every year, instead of worse!