Case Study: SXSW achieves a global, resilient virtual festival experience with Brightcove

Transforming South By Southwest 2021 Into A Virtual Experience Open To The World

South by Southwest (SXSW), the annual music, film and tech festival, faced cancellation in 2020 and had to reinvent its 2021 edition as a fully virtual event. Organizers needed to preserve the festival’s eclectic programming and sense of discovery—across music, film, panels and interactive tracks—while overcoming logistical hurdles and even a crippling winter storm that threatened final production.

Partnering with Brightcove, SXSW delivered a multi-channel OTT experience using Brightcove Beacon, Cloud Playout and Video Cloud to stream live and pre-recorded content to web, mobile, connected TVs and VR headsets. The platform supported roughly 650 hours of content—about 400 conference sessions, 280 music showcases, 70 feature films and ~70 shorts—reaching 31,112 registrants over five days. Brightcove’s scalability, global production continuity and hands-on support kept the festival on schedule and enabled SXSW to successfully bring its signature program to audiences at home.

SXSW

Scott Wilcox

Chief Innovation Officer