Brent Grulke Quotations

We're in the range of 1,500 acts. But that's just the official artists. . . . It's not like we said, 'You know, we should have more.' Because more isn't necessarily better. But we had to grow. Look at the number of applications we had this year.

It is primarily music industry people, but we're distinctive in the type of event in that we also have a consumer component.

The thing about these particular artists is that they're great artists who have been able to dictate the course of their own careers.

I've actually been told by many people they had a much easier time getting into clubs. (But) individual experience may vary widely.

Are all Canadians talented musicians? Sometimes it seems like it.

A lot of bands that end up getting, say, the major label deals ... there's already a good sense that they're a viable commodity. These are acts that are already in a position to be signed, and they doubtless would be signed with or without South by Southwest.

A lot of the time it's just that person-to-person connection between the artists that ends up being the most valuable thing that can happen for them.

It's insane. It's absolutely nuts. It's far too many bands it seems like. But it's not. We can do 1,300 bands and showcase them well. And hopefully, because there's so much choice, it'll make some of the lines a lot shorter at the clubs.

If you move one thing, you probably have to move something else and that can be very time consuming. You might spend an hour trying to solve one act's problem. They might share a guitarist with another band playing the same time. And that has to be resolved. And that could take an hour and an hour this time of year is hard to come by.

Canadian musicians are currently producing some of the most consistently interesting, stylistically diverse sounds in the world. This from a nation of 32 million.