Maybe you’re upset about the scraping of tiered badge entry; maybe you hate the glut of Downtown traffic; or maybe you find the Fest showcases “the cutting edge of Capital, its left and right wings fused in an unholy alliance to chart out the future of Empire’s hell-worlds,” as this counter-festival puts it. Whatever the reason you’re not sipping the SXSW cocktail this year, you’ll be welcome at Smash by Smash West, where nothing’s official and everything’s radical. Smash still runs 10 days across two whole weekends with culture offerings including music showcases, film screenings, and miscellaneous community-building bashes at local venues aplenty. Check their continually increasing calendar of events via smashxsmashwest.noblogs.org. – James Scott
