South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of film, interactive and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring (usually in March) in Austin, Texas, United States. SXSW began in 1987, and has continued to grow in size every year. In 2011, the conference lasted for 10 days, with SXSW Interactive lasting for five, Music for six, and Film running concurrently for nine days.

South by Southwest is run by a company, called SXSW Inc., that plans and executes conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events. In addition to the three main South by Southwest festivals, the company runs two other conferences, both also in Austin: SXSWedu, a conference on educational innovation, since 2011; and SXSW Eco, an environmental conference, since 2012.

SXSW Music is one of the largest music festivals in the United States, with more than 2,000 performers playing in more than 90 venues^{[citation needed]}. SXSW Music offers artist-provided music and video samples of featured artists at each festival via their official YouTube channel.

David Eric "Dave" Grohl (born January 14, 1969) is an American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter, who is the lead vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter and founder of the Foo Fighters, prior to which he was the drummer in the grunge band Nirvana. He is also the drummer and co-founder of the rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures. Grohl has additionally written all the music and performed all the instruments for his short-lived side projects Late! and Probot, as well as being involved with Queens of the Stone Age numerous times throughout the past decade. He has performed session work (as a drummer) for a variety of musicians, including Garbage, Killing Joke, Nine Inch Nails, The Prodigy, Slash, Juliette Lewis, Tenacious D, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Lemmy Kilmister.

As a child, Grohl's family relocated from Warren, Ohio, to Springfield, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Three years later, when Grohl was six, his parents divorced, and Grohl grew up living with his mother.

Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) was an English singer and songwriter known for her powerful deep contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres including R&B, soul and jazz. Winehouse's 2003 debut album, Frank, was critically successful in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Her 2006 follow-up album, Back to Black, led to six Grammy Award nominations and five wins, tying the then record for the most wins by a female artist in a single night, and made Winehouse the first British female to win five Grammys, including three of the "Big Four": Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

In 2007 she won a Brit Award for Best British Female Artist; she had also been nominated for Best British Album. She won the Ivor Novello Award three times: once in 2004 for Best Contemporary Song (musically and lyrically) for "Stronger Than Me", once in 2007 for Best Contemporary Song for "Rehab", and once in 2008 for Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Love Is a Losing Game".

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter-performer who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of heartland rock, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey.

Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born in the U.S.A. and Born to Run, showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million worldwide and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 21 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award. He is widely regarded by many as one of the most influential songwriters of the 20th century, and in 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him as the 23rd Greatest Artist of all time.

Springsteen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and spent his childhood and high school years in Freehold Borough. He lived on South Street in Freehold Borough and attended Freehold Borough High School. His father, Douglas Frederick Springsteen, was of Dutch and Irish ancestry and worked, among other vocations, as a bus driver, although he was frequently unemployed; his surname is Dutch for jump stone. His mother, Adele Ann (née Zerilli), was a legal secretary and was of Italian ancestry. His maternal grandfather was born in Vico Equense, a city near Naples. He has two younger sisters, Virginia and Pamela. Pamela had a brief film career, but left acting to pursue still photography full time; she took photos for the Human Touch and Lucky Town albums.

Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American business magnate. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks,Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and the chairman of the HDTV cable network HDNet. He is also a "shark" investor on the television series Shark Tank. In 2011, Cuban wrote an e-book, How to Win at the Sport of Business, in which he chronicles his life experiences in business and sports.

Cuban was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mt. Lebanon, in a Jewish working-class family. His last name was shortened from "Chabenisky" when his Russian grandparents landed on Ellis Island. Cuban's father Norton was an automobile upholsterer. Cuban's first step into the business world occurred at age 12, when he sold garbage bags to pay for a pair of expensive basketball shoes. While in school, he held a variety of jobs, including bartender, disco dancing instructor, and party promoter. He paid for college by collecting and selling stamps, and once gained about $1,100 from starting a chain letter.