Behind the Scenes

Trail of Lights display, Courtesy of the Trail of Lights website.

How the coordinators behind your favorite events were able to set them up: interviews from volunteers of South by Southwest and the Trail of Lights president.

ustin proudly boasts many events, like the Kite Festival, Austin City Limits, and more. Take a look behind the scenes of South by Southwest and the Trail of Lights from the perspectives of volunteers and event coordinators.

The Trail of Lights is an ever-popular Christmastime event. Occurring from December 8th-23rd at Zilker Park, the Trail of Lights will be celebrating its 59th anniversary this winter. Though it may seem like a simple task, thousands of people walk through the Trail of Lights every day during the festival. Nicholas C. Miller, the current president of the Trail of Lights, has some insight into just what goes on behind the scenes. Although the event takes place in the wintertime, the Trail of Lights Foundation (who hosts the event) will start planning for that year’s Trail of Lights as soon as springtime.

“It’s [a] year-round [commitment]. Right now, our next meeting … will probably be in the next couple of weeks.” Miller explains. Setting up the year’s Trail of Lights takes much more than just stringing lights. It also involves selling signage, finding vendors, and more.

“We are lucky enough to have a multi-year contract with HEB, and they’re our big title sponsor. I mean, they give around $250,000 a year towards the Trail. And we’ll try to line up smaller sponsors, and sell signage. So, trying to sell [signage], that starts to happen in the spring, to get everything prepared for the next year. And meanwhile, the producers are doing all the actual nail-and-hammer step stuff,” Miller says. “We have a contract with the city to put on the event and that gives us the park for that amount of time.”

This wintertime event doesn’t just involve hot chocolate and lights. Believe it or not, the Trail of Lights Foundation was responsible for distributing vaccines during the pandemic throughout the city. “Because we were situated in such a way with our foundation having a contractual relationship with the city … whenever the pandemic came, and the city needed to distribute vaccines to a lot of people very quickly, they asked us to do it. And so, we were kind of the thoroughfare for all the funds and the planning for the vaccine sites. So, the Trail of Lights was actually running all the vaccine sites all over the city.” Miller explains. The foundation has also aided the city during natural disasters. “When we had the freeze a couple years ago, it was a big problem, a lot of people were out of water because of frozen pipes and that kind of thing. We made these water distribution sites, and we ran all of those as well. So, we would take money from the city and then put together these water distribution sites, and we would get the staff to work on that production.” All of this goes to show just how involved setting up an event is, and how broad their outreach is. because a lot of people come here internationally,” Victoria said. “We also want to do it from a social perspective so we can come and meet people like you, and speak to people, and make some new friends and it provides you with dispatch. So, as part of the benefit is you get a badge for one of the venues, depending on how many hours you work and volunteer, you get a badge for music, film or platinum badge,” Malcolm added. Being a volunteer also allows the volunteers to attend the festival, no charge, in their free time. “Anytime we’re not working, the badge is active. So, after we’re volunteering, we can go to venues and participate in that,” Malcolm says.

South by Southwest is an event that has existed since 1987, and ever since, has become a hallmark of Austin. It’s hard to explore the city without running into one of the many sub-events hosted by South by Southwest. South by proudly hosts attractions related to music, art, film, comedy, technology, and more. There truly is something for everyone at this all-encompassing springtime event. Malcolm and Victoria, current South by Southwest volunteers, shared their experience volunteering at the event. “We’re both local Austinites and we wanted to just do something for our community and continue to try and be a good steward of our city Sixth Street during SXSW in 2012. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Malcolm was able to give more insight into what someone’s job could look like when they volunteer. “Here in the convention center, volunteers mainly operate at the doors. On some days where there’s a badge, you have to be scanned. We’ll stand and scan people to make sure they have a valid badge. And then some people count, so they count the number of people that are entering the venue to see how many people have attended for their statistics. There’s also the help desk. So you work in the help desk, people ask for information about where exhibitors are, where sessions occur and things like that.”

However, South by has not always involved badges and tickets.

Eddie Peery, who was a volunteer for SXSW around the year 2012, has good insight into how the event has evolved. “Personally, I miss what South by was kind of when I played it a few years ago. It was way more interesting, more focused, not as much wristband stuff, it was a community thing.” Peery says. Peery was part of a band called the Long Gone Daddies and was visiting Austin to perform his music. “Our second show we ever played in Austin was during SXSW and we had no idea what SXSW was”. He was able to volunteer at SXSW because of the restaurant he worked at. “I was actually working with Freebirds at the time, and Freebirds had a stage … down on South Congress.”

For Peery, his volunteering experience involved selling drinks to people that came by. “We actually set up a tent at the side of St. David’s on South Congress, and we would do food, cocktails, beer, everything. And we had some really awesome artists that played at our stage as well,” Peery says. Although Peery was just a volunteer at SXSW, he was still able to have the South by Southwest experience. Peery explains that he was able to meet festival.

Laura Jane Grace from Against Me!, Bill Murray, Billy Joe Green, and Jonny Twobags from Social Distortion. When asked what he would say to someone who wanted to volunteer at SXSW, Peery said, “Just take it all in and just enjoy it, and don’t overthink it,” Malcolm shared a similar sentiment. He said, “Just enjoy it, you know, if you want to do it. Just come and make the most of it. Enjoy your opportunity to do that”.

Not my thing.