the decrescendo
SXSW 'streamlining' in 2026, cutting closing weekend of music and film
South by Southwest will still have its Music Festival, but it might be harder for many attendees to prioritize.
Right as South by Southwest (SXSW) 2025 ends, Austinites are getting a look at next year's festivals and conference, which shave two days off its usual nine-day arc. Notably, the long-running Music Festival has lost its closing weekend dates but gained a day overall. Some attendees and media outlets are already elegizing the festival that lives on nonetheless.
The change also affects the Film Festival, but amid nostalgia and angst about the Music Festival, the latter is getting more attention in the resulting discourse. Because the Music Festival generally starts after the Film Festival, attendees and media have both come to associate the final weekend as a "dedicated" time for music — even though it's not technically accurate. (Headlines like one from the Hollywood Reporter that read "SXSW Ends Music Festival in 2026: Report" did not help.) In 2025, the Film Festival lasted every day of SXSW.
In 2026, the entirety of SXSW will run from March 12-18, Thursday to Wednesday with no second weekend. To compare, this year's events were held from March 7-15, Friday to Saturday spanning two weekends. According to a badge presale, the festivals (Film & TV, Music, and Interactive) are no longer staggered.
In practical terms, this could deprioritize music for locals who work during the week. Additionally, attendees who need to prioritize other events when they're available might also have a harder time working music in. However, it does technically add a day compared to this year's music schedule, making it seven days overall instead of six.
In addition to the date changes in store for 2026, SXSW is offering lower presale badge prices and explains that it's "streamlining access to improve the experience." That means no more priority and secondary access for each badge type — it'll be exclusive access only, unless attendees go for a platinum badge. Although it now costs less, it's still a significant investment at $1,165. The price will go up March 31.
SXSW will also lose access to the Austin Convention Center until 2029, so it promises "industry-specific hubs," further siloing the experience.
“A shorter SX gives attendees more of a chance to be here for the entire run," says a statement by a SXSW spokesperson in an email to CultureMap after this article's original publication. "With the Conference, Film & TV Festival, and Music Festival all taking place concurrently over seven days, everyone will have the chance to experience the whole of SXSW."
The statement continues: "This gives music fans an opportunity to enjoy seven nights of showcases instead of the six we’ve had for several years. It also allows us to continue the work the Music Festival programmers have done over the last decade in paring down the numbers of showcasing artists while spreading the shows out over a greater part of the event. This creates a more curated experience for attendees and artists while retaining the discovery that the music festival is known for."
For those who aren't intensively crunching the numbers — counting sessions by topic from year to year or carefully maintaining a list of participating event organizers — this is some of the first concise evidence locals have that SXSW substantially changed this year.
Discussions about the years-long documented shift to tech, then film and TV have proliferated in 2025. Those were surrounded by more anecdotal gripes about an increasingly corporate feel despite the noted absence of quite as many brand-sponsored public events, plus overall sparser attendance. Photos of empty streets circulated on social media this past weekend.
Commenters and journalists alike pointed fingers at last year's protests and artist pull-outs due to U.S. Military and weapons manufacturer sponsorships, as well artists' ongoing struggle for better pay. Many named COVID-19 and the sudden cancelation of all official events in 2020 as the definitive moment that things started crumbling. More still call out relatively new ownership by Penske Media Corporation, the publisher of Rolling Stone and Variety.
However, claims that the Music Festival is over in 2026 simply aren't true — yet. How the festival fares in following years remains to be seen, but folks who are willing to prioritize music still have the option to do so. Attendees will have to make more difficult choices about what do and see with more competition between events, but the music does play on.
Angeli Rose Gomez is an Uvalde native and mother of two children.
Photo by Caleb Kuntz, courtesy of Sanarte Films
Mon Rovîa is a Tennessee-based Afro-Appalachian folk musician from Liberia.Photo by Amber Heckler