I'm not sure how it is now, but I lived in Austin 1998-2011, often volunteered at Interactive, and stayed through the music festival. Most of the people I met t

I'm not sure how it is now, but I lived in Austin 1998-2011, often volunteered at Interactive, and stayed through the music festival. Most of the people I met there were either: 1) Marketing and throwing parties to promote their own startup/product 2) There to drink and hang out at above parties 3) Marketing their book and trying to meet influential bloggers to write about their book 4) Attending because their company paid for them to attend some talks It seems like it would be hard to stand out as a recruiter at SXSWi given how big it is now. You'll see a company with a huge budget have The Roots or Foo Fighters play at their party or something over the top. I think sponsoring local meetups for specific languages/interest groups would work better.