University Union will host a panel this March at South by Southwest, a music, film and interactive festival in Austin, Texas.

UU concert director Kelly Benini will organize and speak on the “Back 2 School Special: Truth Behind College Buying” panel, which will focus on the college booking process from the perspectives of both artist representatives and university programming boards. UU submitted the idea for their panel to SXSW in mid-June, Benini said.

“We thought it would be a really good conversation to kind of delve into what the future of college touring going to look like,” she said, adding that the panel will encourage colleges to have students, rather than advisors, book artists so that students can gain experience and represent the interests of their peers.

SXSW was founded in 1987 to help creative people and agencies meet and develop ideas, according to their website. This year, the festival will run March 7th through the 16th and it will be announced about a month beforehand what day UU will hold their panel.

In addition to Benini, a few people from UU’s concert board will attend the event to show their support and hand out press kits advertising UU’s work, Benini said.

“The good thing is, a lot of agents and managers and artists attend the panels, so it’ll help with industry connections which is sometimes half the battle with featuring artists,” she said.

She said UU’s association with SXSW will give them an opportunity to show the caliber of their work. This could help them bring in more of the artists students want to see, she said.

In the future, Benini said UU will try to bring similar panels to campus so more students can benefit from them.

“Overall, I think it’s a big stepping stone for University Union to do something like this,” she said. “We’re really excited about it and it’s going to make our programming that much better next semester.”

Published on October 31, 2013 at 7:11 pm

Contact Maggie: mmcregan@syr.edu