SXSW PanelPicker Trends: More LGBTQ
The Forrest Four-Cast: August 20, 2018
We’re entering the stretch run of community voting and commenting on the 5000+ speaking proposals in the 2019 PanelPicker, as the interface closes at the end of the day on Thursday, August 30. But, there’s still plenty of time to get involved with this process. Just sign on to your SXSW account. If you don’t have an account, it only takes two minutes to set one up via this page.
The number of speaking proposals in the PanelPicker make it fertile ground for discovering trends and themes. We do this by comparing the total number of entries for a given topic in this year’s interface to the total number of entries in the interface from a year ago.
For 2019, we are excited to see that LGBTQ-related speaking proposals have almost doubled versus what was entered a year ago. For 2019, you’ll find 30 speaking proposals covering this topic, while the 2018 PanelPicker interface included just 16.
Many of these proposals will be part of the LBGTQ Series of Sessions that is scheduled for March 2019 in Austin. Click here to learn more about the LGBTQ Series of Sessions from SXSW 2018.
Enter your favorite keyword in the “Search” bar on the left sidebar of the interface to dive into other trends in the 2019 PanelPicker. Or, better yet, keep track of the running list of ideas that are getting the most traction in this year’s interface by simply bookmarking this post from Medium.
About 500–600 of the 5000+ speaking proposals in the PanelPicker will be accepted as sessions for March 2019 in Austin. These accepted sessions will be announced via the SXSW website in mid-October.
Register before the early-bird deadline of September 13 so that you can take part in all the discovery, brainstorming, creativity, deal-making, and cross-industry networking that is SXSW. After you buy your badge, then book your Austin lodging for the event. Plenty of convenient downtown rooms still available throughout the March Magic timeframe.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
