South By South West Interactive, the world’s largest event for (but not exclusively for) web design types, finished last week, garnering similar responses to last year’s event.

Casual conversation revealed two major points: “It’s great to see everyone” and “It’s tooo big”.

Probably not something most companies would gain the greatest return on investment from (especially those who have to travel some distance to get there), those looking for focused, educational, dare I say higher quality content, would do better looking elsewhere (ahem). That said, this is a huge city-takeover, taking place in the bars and restaurants as much as in the convention centre. This is where you go for a rollicking good time, and most certainly seemed to have that.

SxSW isn’t so much a conference as a festival. At 7,500 attendees (ten times that of @media London), a decidedly no-frills affair across 5 days and 13 tracks (no, that’s not a typo: Thirteen. Thir. Teen.), and an emphasis on the social side, this is Geek Glastonbury.

It remains a unique experience and continues to offer high points (social) and low points (oversized).