(last edited on September 20, 2014 at 3:54 pm)
I like to know where things are, so I again made some maps for this year using a couple different styles.
The first shows the street numbers of venues around the Austin Convention Center. If you know the address of the party you’re going to, you can just look for the number on the map.
The second is a simplification that uses the streets as a coordinate grid. The way you would use this is to look up the name of the event, find the street, and trace along it until you find the address of your destination. This part of Austin is fairly regularly gridlike, so it works.
Each block isn’t that big, so you can also estimate time to get from one block to another (it’s probably something like 2 or 3 minutes). I figure if you’re walking, you just want to know how to get in the approximate vicinity of your destination, then you can start looking for other cues like street numbers. By making the order of street names obvious in the top and left columns, it’s also useful for figuring out where you are. It might be useful for my Friday morning exploration walk, when I’m planning on looking for interesting stores.
Here’s the excel spreadsheet if anyone wants to customize it.
Cowboy Hats!
A reader also wrote me about a place called Shepler’s which will fit you for a “real hat”. Leaving a note for myself: 6001 Middle Fiskville Rd, Austin, TX 78752 (At the corner of I-35 & Hwy 290E) (512) 454-3000. A friend of mine has been trying to get me into “Cowboy Action Shooting”, and you need an entire pseudonym—maybe “Deadeye Hong”, in honor of James Hong?—along with a kit of shootin’ irons and leatherwear.
5 Comments
These are awesome maps, thanks a ton and see you there!
—Andy
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I think the grid appeals to me more because of my synesthesia ‘gift’. My brother on the other hand, is all about maps: http://www.mologogo.com
Another good place to look for a cowboy hat is Allen’s Boots on South Congress. I got a great pair of boot there a few years ago, they have a large selection of hats as well.
What would be great is if SXSW let you map all your events. So, I’d go to my.sxsw.com, click the events I want, and then it X’s them on a layout of the convention center. Wouldn’t that be nifty? I think you should be in charge of that project, David! You do great maps and organizational charts.
darn, just realized these are 2007 maps. Did you do any for 2009? Are you going to SXSWi this year?