Kinda like I had mentioned in class, I’ll run again through my idea for the format the final project can take as well as some areas of data collection or visualization opportunities for us to showcase.
The site would consist of basically a main page explaining the project, the students, etc… and from there you could go to several different areas of focus either provided by individual students, pairs, or groups that wanted to tackle different topics or go down different verticals within the Austin music scene.
Some of these could potentially look at:
- Looking at the economic changes and impact that events like SXSW, ACL, or even FFF fest have on the Austin community and area businesses (especially food/lodging). How does music affect businesses and other things perhaps not even related to music. I feel that financial numbers would be really easy to find and collect and perhaps display in interesting formats using some of the charting options we have recently looked at. Though the information may be a little dry, we can investigate overall the monetary implementations that comes with calling Austin home to these fairly massive festival events.
- We could also explore specific musical genres in Austin and see not only which is the most supported and popular, but rank these visually in an interesting way that allows users to connect themselves with the information, and discover new music.
- Something interesting to me after attending the last couple of SXSW events is the fact that the olden days of SXSW being about discovering new bands or giving regional bands from other areas a stage to shine on while they try to reach the Austin market is gone and been swapped out for a overly commercialized, sponsored, “big name touring act” mentality that many view has kinda stolen the heart of SXSW. It used to be you had one of a couple of different packages to choose from and could get to see pretty much whoever you wanted, but now it seems that every other brand is sponsoring their own private parties and events with special entrance hurdles and it’s no longer about finding new music, but promoting the most popular.
Either way, these just name a few ideas outside of some of the ones listed here or discussed in class. I look forward to hearing more about your ideas on what would be best to cover and how to best try and display it as something interactive and worthy of the class considering the current skill sets we have. I’ll be sure to update with more bullet points as I come up with more or place more within this post if I get any other “bright” ideas!