By regular measurements, this year’s South by Southwest is going to be a massive success. Likely record attendance, big-name premiers, packed houses…wow, they’re really doing something right!

But they’re not. Especially as I talk to folks who have been going to SXSW for more years than I, a picture becomes clear: everyone here is chasing an event that no longer exists. A more quality, intimate event. An event full of entrepreneurs and hackers, not marketers. An event that meant something.

The reality of SXSW’s size is that it simply can’t maintain that quality. In order to accommodate the larger crowds they’ve branched out to new venues. This has meant that panelists have to work harder to get people to come to their particular event, attendees have to traipse many blocks to get to the next venue, and perhaps most significant: there’s less hallway talk. I don’t talk to people as I walk from the convention center to the InterContinental Stephen F Austin. I have 30 minutes, and I have to make it count, because the panel I want to attend is going to fill up quick. Gone are the chance encounters, the lively debates, and the detours to go get beers with new acquaintances.

The core of any conference should be learning and meeting people. With so many options of middling quality and so little time, SXSW is killing both.

I don’t blame the organizers. The event has grown because it was good. The organizers have done their best to accommodate this growth. But should they have?

If SXSW was great before, should they have just stopped allowing new attendees? If that were the case, I wouldn’t be able to go to SXSW. Maybe Evan Williams and Biz Stone wouldn’t have. Suddenly, you’re going to have an event with the same people talking about the same things while the world innovates around them.

Burning Man is dealing with this very issue. This year as they’ve reached their max capacity (even for a huge valley in the desert). Rather than issue a chronological cutoff, they gave out tickets by lottery…instantly alienating many of the founding members and architects of the event who suddenly couldn’t come. Nope, that’s not the way to go.

I’m dealing with this right now as my Community Manager Breakfast in San Francisco grows. An intimate conversation is suddenly not so intimate when there are 30 attendees. I thought about not letting anyone else in…but brilliant friends and colleagues are applying, so that seems counterintuitive.

The answer, I suspect, is not one any of us want to face. We need to let go. Much like TED expanded to multiple events and then allowed anyone to create a TEDx event, we have to let our events grow horizontally instead of vertically. Maybe I need to let other people do breakfasts, or have two breakfasts a month, or something. SXSW needs to give up on fitting everyone and encourage things like North by Northeast, whether or not they control and make money from them. And Burning Man needs to let this passionate community create more, smaller communities, or risk imploding.

Is it easy? Hell naw. I think many community builders are control freaks…because we care so much. We want everything to be perfect and we can’t ensure that if we let go. But you know what? Things aren’t perfect, even when we control them. And organized is not the same thing as great.

Line photo courtesy of dickdavid.
Burning Man photo courtesy of legsonasnake.