Last Minute SXSW Planning?  Try out OEB’s Grids!

It’s the Saturday for the music portion of SXSW, which means way too many people are just starting to plan their schedule now.  Operation Every Band can have you covered, with the electronic version of our SXSW Grids.  We cover:

- Tuesday Night-Saturday Night, Day Parties and Showcases

- Our top showcase/party recommendations, listed by comparative time.  We average about 20 different showcases per time slot, categorized by genre, location and sponsor.

- Extensive “One Off” Recommendations, great bands on less-than-great showcases.

- Popularity Index per artist and showcase/day party, converting a band’s YouTube views to a 1-10 rating.  This will hope to answer the dreaded “line or no line” question.

- Our OEB Scores - we’ve rated every band showcasing at SXSW and based our recommendations of our ears.

For more information, check out the Donator page (button towards the left of the page).  The cutoff has ended for mailed packages, but digital copies are available for any donators. 

Our Donator gift bags are in the final assembly stages.  There are less than five open spots for packages and the deadline is end-of-day Sunday if you still want to get on board before this goes purely digital.

To join in, click here.

Exclusive OEB SXSW Grids - First Glance

Donators, get excited.  

Anyone else wanting to get on board - see here.  There are currently 16 open slots for anyone who wants the mailed packages (min: $10) and then we’ll move completely to electronic up through March 12.

OEB’s SXSW Grids – A Preview

This year, we decided to open up Operation Every Band to donations after much debate.  The support we’ve received in the last few weeks has been overwhelming, most containing some sort of personal ‘thank you’ that keeps me going every night, determined to complete the mission of ‘every band’ this year with no drop in the quality of coverage.  While donators get our gift bag (more below) at any dollar amount, the average donation is currently over $20, showing the above-and-beyond mentality the SXSW community has always shown.  In future weeks, we’ll take some time to highlight our growing OEB family as well.

As promised, we’re prepping some nice gift packages for our donators (see all info here), including digital access and a hard copy of the SXSW 2013 OEB Grids.  While this is exclusive to our donators, I did want to give a little preview using some made-up info (but a real showcase!).  This is just a mock up, but here are some of the things you can expect to see on the Grids (see the picture above):

-       Our Top Showcase/Day Party recommendations, with up to 20 different showcases per time slot (split between day and night from Tuesday night to Saturday night – 9 sheets total)

-       Venues and addresses (trust me, this is crucial) for the top showcases

-       OEB’s score for the artist, color-coded like on the spreadsheet

-       Popularity Index for every artist on the top showcases and one-off recommendations.  Using a formula, I’ve converted artists’ top YouTube views into a 1-10 number, attempting to answer that all-important SXSW question: line or no line?

-       One Off recommendations for artists that weren’t on the strongest showcase or party, but are still worth going out of your way for.  

As always, you can donate and join our extended family in order to get a copy of the Grids among other unexpected goodies.  To contribute, click on the ‘donate’ button on the left side of the Operation Every Band homepage.  

Donating to OEB

Hey everyone,

While I realize there are many places that you should donate money to more than a SXSW music website these days, I recently received a couple inquiries on how some of our dedicated fans can help the cause.  I’ve been thinking about it as the digital equivalent of buying me a beer.  I don’t make a dime off of this project and am not associated with any publications - this is purely a passion project that became something bigger.  With just under 30,000 followers on Tumblr, it is rewarding in and of itself to feel like I have a small pocket of ownership when it comes to recommending new artists to your playlists.

      - That being said, I’d hate to collect for nothing.  We’ll reward any donation, from a buck-fifty to a bazillion dollars, with an OEB SXSW 2013 Package, which includes:a hard copy and digital copy of our top secret OEB SXSW 2013 Showcase/Day Party Guide, featuring a breakdown by time of all the best showcases and individual acts each day.  This is my personal roadmap while I’m in Austin and it is awesome.  This will also include popularity ratings (how crowded will it be and when?) and, of course, our Operation Every Band scores.  This will be delivered no later than one week before the conference.

     - the OEB Mixtape - featuring our favorite artists for the trip down to Austin.

     - Stickers, Thank You Notes and other goodies and surprises!

Since Pay Pal can be somewhat cryptic, I just ask that you email me at operationeveryband@gmail.com with your address and the preferred email address you wish to receive you digital copy of our OEB SXSW Guide after you donate, if you wish to contribute.

Thanks again for all the kind words of response over the years.  Just taking the time to write a few words is greatly appreciated and we’re glad we can help make your SXSW (or just music exploration in general) the best it can be.

To donate - click on the Pay Pal link towards the left at http://operationeveryband.com.

Thanks,

Kevin, Alison, Nate and Lucas