South By Southwest Film Badge

So we are on the verge of South by Southwest – the time of year when the world of entertainment, music, comedy, and social media converges on our city – Austin. I am going with a film badge this year. It’s funny how I got it.

We went to a fundraiser for a friend who works at a preschool in East Austin. Our friends asked us to bid on items in the silent auction to help drive up the price. This was a risky proposition, but we wanted to help. We only bid on things we actually would have liked, but of course, we couldn’t afford it if we won all of the items. We were the first to bid on probably 20 different items. Throughout the night our bids kept getting beat. A few times we put down a new bid – not just to raise the price but to win.  One of the items was two film badges to South by Southwest. A friend of mine from Los Angeles was hoping to come out, so I thought I would bid for him. I kept calling and texting him to see if he wanted me to bid on his behalf. He is a filmmaker, and his daughter is a singer/songwriter. But I mean the chances of me winning and the chances of her getting selected are slim, right?!

I never heard back from him, so I was relieved when my bid was eclipsed by someone else by $150. They skipped raising my bid by the typical $25 or $50 mark and just went way over it.

As we walked out just before the end of the event, I took a look at the bids to see if anyone had beaten his high bid. To my astonishment, he had crossed his name off the list. By default, mine was the highest bid.  I know several people saw his really high bid and gave up, never checking on that item again. As a result, I won!

South by Southwest is a big deal, right! I mean movies premier here. Bands like Foster the People are discovered playing here in Austin. You probably know this, but Twitter was introduced here in Austin at SxSW. Now, we can know what people are doing way more than we ever wanted to know!

By the way, my friend’s daughter is playing at South by Southwest, and he may be coming, but he won’t be here long enough to use the film badge.

All that to say, I am selling a film badge for $500 (normally $595), if you are interested, see my ad on Craigslist here. 🙂

UPDATE: The badge has been sold. 🙂