South by Southwest 2026 Reduces to Seven Days

SXSW is losing its longtime home at the Austin Convention Center, which will be demolished later this spring to make way for a new state-of-the-art facility (photo by John Anderson)

A big change is coming to South by Southwest in 2026, as the festival and conference pulls back from its now-traditional nine days to seven.

The news came as Austin's original culture jam announced a limited presale for its 2026 event. Next year, the main SXSW will run Thursday, March 12 to Wednesday, March 18. Meanwhile SXSW EDU, the education-related spin-off, will run Monday, March 9 to Thursday, March 12. The changed dates were confirmed when SXSW put 2026 badges on sale this weekend as the 2025 event wrapped up, although many affected parties such as local hotels had already been informed of the shift.

Compare that to this year. EDU ran March 3-6, Monday to Thursday, while the main festival took over downtown March 7-15, Friday to the following Saturday. The new schedule means that the last day of EDU and the first day of the main festival will overlap, getting rid of the gap day that has previously demarked the two events.

The biggest change for attendees may be that there will no longer be any staggering between the different sections of the festival. In 2025, only the film festival ran across all nine days: The conference component ran March 7-13, while music kicked off in earnest March 10 and ran through closing night. Under the new timeline, all three elements will run concurrently. (Contrary to some inaccurate media reports, the music festival is not shortening in length; it takes place alongside the film festival and the conference from Thursday, March 12-Wednesday, March 18, 2026.)

This is not the first time SXSW has changed its duration. It started in 1987 as a four-day music industry showcase at a series of venues around Austin. Even with the addition of the Film and Interactive components in 1994, it still topped out at five days, only growing to its week-plus length in 2000. Technically then it was 10 days, but the final Sunday was a cooldown day, with a handful of music shows and the closing barbecue and softball game targeted at industry professionals.

This retraction comes as SXSW faces a major change. Since 1993, it has used the Austin Convention Center as its home base for panels, badge pickup, the trade show (now the expo), and the Flatstock print and poster festival. However, the convention center is being demolished and replaced with a state-of-the-art facility. The city's timeline would see it reopen in time for SXSW 2029, but all parties are waiting to see if that optimistic deadline can be reached.

However, for anyone wanting to lock in their spring break 2026 destination now, here's the prices under this limited presale:

• Platinum badge (admission to all events) $1,165 plus tax
• Interactive badge $785
• Film & TV badge $700
• Music badge $475
• EDU badge $495

SXSW and SXSW EDU 2026 badges are available now via sxsw.com