Next year’s edition of the festival will be two days shorter as SXSW's music programming will take place throughout the week.

The 2026 edition of SXSW will be shorter, but conference organizers are quick to clarify that the shortened dates won’t impact slotted music time. Let us unpack. At the center of this scheduling switch-up is the Austin Convention Center,

Brian Hobbs, SXSW’s director of music festival programming, has since said the changes will expand the musical offerings, not scale them back. But it’s hard not to see this as the latest setback for an event that began in 1987 as a raucous music talent show.