“If you're going to go to your community and build with them, realize that you're going to have to support and prop them up. It's not a part-time job. It's a full-time thing.” - Todd Hansen

In the Spring of 1987, a group of music fans and journalists organized a small live event in Austin, Texas. Around 700 people showed up. By 2019, South by Southwest (SXSW) had become a 10-day conference and festival with over 28,000 attendees heading to Austin each March.

Each year the conference receives 5,000+ proposals and the programs team, which Todd Hansen led, was tasked to sift through and find the 600 sessions to schedule for the final event. 

Though SXSW was canceled last year, that didn’t slow Todd down. He and conspirators saw their artistic friend’s opportunities disappear in the wake of the pandemics—canceled tours, exhibitions, premiers—and responded by creating the Artist Rescue Trust, which dolls out monthly $500 checks to folks who are working full time as artists. 

Outside of running programming at SXSW for 10 years, Todd has also run a record label, he’s the person responsible for Rich Kids of Instagram, and once owned and operated an early coach surfing website.

We talked with Todd about sourcing and supercharging leads of SXSW’s session and how he recognized a need and energy to support artists through the pandemic.

Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:

• The History of SXSW. From humble beginnings of 700 attendees in 1987 to 28,000+ in 2019.
• Building with. How SXSW uses the PanelPicker system to co-create the content of the festival.
• The beginning of Artist Rescue Trust. Todd and friends came together to support artist affected by the pandemic.
• You can’t fake the funk. Tood’s innate feeling to share ideas.

👋🏻Say hi to Todd and learn more about the Artist Rescue Trust.

📄See the full transcript.

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