SXSW® GO - 2024 Event Guide Reviews

The UX is so messed up on SXSW. Menu items are confusing: Schedule, Today, My Favorites seem to be versions of the same thing. Seeing just films or just bands is under Lists A-Z. You can filter by tags but not by venue, by date or by time. Sometimes the schedule shows my favorited items, sometimes not. Sometimes essential info runs off screen on my small phone. Events Nearby opens a “link my badge” window that is impossible to exit. It took me 4 days to find out there was a shuttle tracker. Two stars because it runs on both my iPad and my ancient iPhone. It would be better if you could rate 1st choice, 2nd choice, etc for events at same time, or place events on the map so you could plan things near each other. But Schedule functions well (I like the “free time” feature when there’s a gap in schedule).

With all the interactive and tech focus of this app SXSW should really work better than this.

SXSW is useful. It’s easier to access than the web schedule.

Although the functionality is limited (hard to scroll, slow response, can’t search by location) it’s actually one of the best conference apps since most conference apps are horrible.

However, SXSW has many, many ads. Every time you launch, there’s a non -skippable ad. My device is a bit old (6S) and this takes 5 seconds. It’s the same ad for Showtime. I’m already a subscriber. You can’t turn this off. It takes 5 seconds to load and tap “skip ad.”

When you’re browsing the schedule, there’s a non-skippable banner ad with 15-20% of the screen. Again for showtime. With the other navigation wrapper, this means you can only see 3-4 items and scrolling is jerky. This means when you swipe you go past where you want.

This conference is paid. I understand trying to get some ad revenue, but it’s worsening your user experience. Comically, there are dozens of sessions with great designers about design. There’s probably some this app employee weeping at having to sacrifice design principles for the release of SXSW.

I would prefer just a giant pdf and text search (not available).

Oh yeah, the capacity feature is neat, but not very accurate or useful. Although I don’t think this is a flaw in SXSW . Likely the data capture and estimate.

...is SXSW.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great when it works - up to the minute information about the schedule, suggestions about what conferences to attend, up to the minute line “status”

But it frustrating to use a frustrating amount of the time, specially for a conference that is supposed to be for interactives, I’d expect better execution!

Scrolling the list is constantly wonky, going into a detail page and then back to the list you loose your place, or events show up multiple times - creating an infinite scroll affect.

If you’re playing audio in SXSW , the layering makes some of it unusable.

When loading detail pages sometimes it crashes out within SXSW and the detail page goes away and returns me back to the start of SXSW , loosing my place and forcing me to search again.

The express pass is a nice idea, but I only got it to work once after being there for a week and trying at 9am the day prior as instructed.

Easier filtering would be nice - maybe some way to scan the “hotter” discussions than the weaker ones. You’re often deciding between a dozen sessions at the same time that you want to attend - would be great if there was a way to compare them with some metadata to help aid in decision making

1. The red/yellow/green indicators don’t help. The event staff controlling the door/line for each session should really be able to manually change the indicator to yellow & red based on the line ups they are seeing before a session starts. If I see a green indicator 20min before a session and run across downtown to get there only to find there is a line up equal to double the room capacity - that’s a serious failure in communication. If the door staff had changed it to red when they knew the rooms capacity was lined up in the hall, then I would know it wasn’t worth hustling across town to try and make it.

2. The location services really need to include maps inside each building showing where the rooms are. And it also needs step by step navigation / direction so the people can quickly find the rooms they are seeking.

User experience on SXSW is awful. There’s no way to stop seeing items that you’ve looked at and don’t want to attend so you have to keep scrolling past them as you look for new stuff you might want to see. Many of the companies that are here are not listed as exhibitors even tho they have a major Presence here. Example Twitter - not listed but they have a Twitter house - why?
Was overall very disappointed in SXSW given that this is this app - expectations for cool tech are high. I saw better venue apps at the national retail federation and others. Given how this event is spread out all over Austin it is imperative to have an app that helps navigate. Although your map feature is nice. Would be nice to be able to see on a map what you’ve favorited so you can tell if you can get from one to the next easily.

You can no longer select the type of event (e.g. film screening) easily from the filter. You can go in and select every single film category and get the same thing.

You can no longer filter by venue. Further, each screen in Alamo is listed as a unique venue, so if you just navigate to a specific venue schedule you have to view each screen in isolation.

As a local, I typically purchase a film wristband and attend whatever’s at Alamo South Lamar. An ideal user flow is, open app, filter by venue, then filter by date, then go through the line up to determine the preferred films for the day. What used to be an easy process now requires me to copy paste and reorganize info from SXSW to get a complete picture of options at any given time.

Content organization is still confusing and app is buggy. It isn’t properly syncing my favorites from my tablet—only some of them, so I don’t have a complete schedule with me. The list of events is also unwieldy and difficult to scan six lines at a time—it doesn’t scale for the growth of the content. Then it reloads every time a schedule update completes, losing my place! Links with more info for event descriptions don’t actually like anywhere, and the full-page recommendations cards are slow to load and a pain to scroll through. After all these years, why is SXSW still so problematic?

Latest Update:
- deleted SXSW completely. Downloaded again as noticed they had done update for iPhonex. Seems to be working much better now on the issues.

My current list of issues - I run app on iphoneX:
- can’t update profile pic - missing feature
- won’t save favourites of anything as lose it on next sync
- planned schedule on website instead and expected it to sync to app - doesn’t
- filters don’t work - can’t move sliders
- slow performance
- rsvp doesn’t work

Basically app is useless for its most critical purpose and that is helping to plan the experience we pay for at this app. I now revert to paper guide and using iCal sync from the website scheduler. The only thing I use for is venue addresses.

Hard to believe given this is a design and engineering conference. SXSW simple hasn’t been tested.

Three sets of problems. One is its its glitches, freezing, and frequent update downloads. The second has to do with its design problems, where it is difficult to come to the time you’re at now and not see everything in your favorites that you already tagged. The third has to do with how they’re using it. If you’re going to change buildings for an event, as they did yesterday, use the pushes earlier. It is too frustrating to use with any confidence.

Another year of hoping to see improvements in SXSW ... Ads are still very prominent, but it’s frustrating that as I try to plan for my SX experience, it seems the schedule won’t filter down to this app Gaming correctly - it shows all festival content. Seeing as scheduling is the primary function of SXSW , it’s quite useless for attendees focusing on SX Gaming. Though perhaps that’s not a surprise since SX Gaming isn’t a cash cow like Music or Interactive.

I wish the ability to create a calendar around my interested Ms was easier to create. I wish I could track events at a venue more easily. There’s just so much going on that it’s just a massive amount of data to track. SXSW is better than nothing, but the paper booklets were more helpful for me and faster. As a young baby boomer (54) I’m half analog and half digital - I really appreciate both.

SXSW , functionally, is fine. I got to see the details of events going on and request SXXpress passes when I wanted to. But I went to SX with a group and we didn’t have an easy and simple way to share and see each other’s schedules without connecting to FB or physically showing it. Also, SXSW burns through cellular data like nobody’s business.

What else can you use to find stuff so quickly? I have just started using it looking for interests to the days events. Immediate impression is good. I will check back when I use it more, but for now it is doing what I need

My only real gripe is that when going through the day-by-day schedule I have to scroll back to the top when I change days. SXSW gets better and smoother every year. Thanks!

Overall, happy with basics of SXSW . Having terrible issues with viewing the schedule. It’s removed all the actual music events, and just panels, or artist only events showing. Some artists are disappearing, and show times are disappearing as well. Haven’t been able to find the correct way to link my wristband as SXSW says.

My favorite release of the this app app.
This is my first 5 star review.
Really enjoy the sxexpress reservation feature. Also daily updates working more reliably.

SXSW has tried to make a lot of data available, which is great but in the process user experience has taken a dive. The networking section for example does not save the interests/hashtags or shows recommendations. Browsing profiles is tedious and it keeps going all the way to the beginning.

Could use a few more filters – such as for theatre locations, but otherwise worked as expected.

A bit confusing here and there. Schedule lists events by time, title and place and separates events by a nearly invisible line. I perceived the schedule at first to be title, place and time. That makes the most sense. Took a couple of events to figure out.

Recently SXSW only works for me if I disconnect from Wifi. I’m consistently logged out of my account and when I go to log back in I can’t access it. I probably get to use it once a week, the rest of the time is me trying to troubleshoot how to get back in.

PLEASE, just let me open SXSW to the last thing I was looking at! Every time I open it it takes me back to home page where I have to click on the “go to schedule” button, tap on my schedule, tap on the date, and scroll down. It would be great if SXSW would just open on the last thing you were looking at! Sure, serve me the same yellow jackets ad I’ve seen a million times already but please don’t make me start over every time I open SXSW !!! Also the search should be optimized a bit to include any word/person/place of the sessions. For instance, I would search “ballroom D” and random things would pop up but not the room page where I can see the sessions that will happen there. Hope this is helpful!

All the information is here, but Search is missing some very obvious filters. I can’t look up musical acts by genre. I can’t filter results down to the ones available for the pass I bought. It’s very hard to narrow the hundreds of options down to plan my week.

Also, there are workers scanning people’s badges and wristbands when we enter the venues. But every show is showing green (low capacity) … they’re collecting the attendance data but SXSW isn’t using it.

It’s basically a decent app, I can work with it, but it’s inconvenient in some pretty obvious ways.

I was logged into the 2022 this app Go app and couldn't get the schedule to update from last year so I realized I needed to update to the 2023 version. On loading it however, I'm presented with a login link that takes me to an empty profile page. Every link there results in a brief pop-up that says Tap to log in but which immediately disappears taking me back to the profile page. The login button at the top of that page does absolutely nothing. I can't find a way to clear the cache out so I am stuck unable to access anything useful in SXSW .

SXSW is epic — once you know how to use it.

Would be helpful to have a little starter video or something to swipe through so newbies can get acclimated and organized.

Also, it’d be great to have it set to open to the last screen viewed rather than resetting and starting over every time.

SXSW is trash and you always ignore the feedback, but it was at least somewhat manageable.

If I’ve favorited a band, then any added showcases should show up for that band in my schedule. Instead I have to find out the shows been added and then go locate the artist, find the new show, and manually add it.

You removed the ability to reach a venue through an artists show time that allowed you to see who else was also playing there. Please just bring this back. You took it out and put in a “get directions” button. Just add them both please you’re making it harder every year to see the music and talks we want to see.

It honestly blows my mind that a festival based on technology can’t seem to hire a company or a set of professionals to build a functional app. But don’t worry everyone - the new paramount adds work every time!

I attend this app every year as a badge holder. The local free paper is called the Austin Chronicle and every year for decades now they release the schedule by date and organized by venue. Last year on SXSW or the website there was no way to see the lineup in the classic format. I hit up support and they agreed this is odd. Well. Another year and the schedule is a mess of everything. Big plus on filtering by country of origin tho! I want the dev team to understand that geography is important in planning the experience. Grab a Chronicle.

I’ve attended a couple of informative sessions but generally less impressed with this app then I expected, as a first timer. The popular sessions were impossible to get into, even for a platinum badge holder, or required waiting for a very long time. And even then, the presentations often did not correspond to the published descriptions. So far I would say it’s not worth the money.