DJsounds' Lorna Cole ventured to Austin, Texas, to attend the South By South West conference. This is a music, film and interactive conference and festival that takes place every March in the capital of Texas, and is now in it's 24th Year.

We hear from Matt Sonzala, the festival organiser, who explains the multitude of reasons why you should attend the conference. The musical aspect of the festival spans over five days and officially hosts over 2,000 artists, bands and DJs from all over the world crossing every genre, not to mention the unofficial events.

 Aspiring DJs, as well as the pros, would do well to put it in their diaries, as it's an amazing networking event, as well as a great place to party. We also hear from Eric Stahl, General Manager, and Justin Emert, Events Programmer, at hot club, Barcelona, which is considered by many to be Austin's most influential DJ and electronic music venue, about the all day/night parties they put on.

Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky, from New York, was fully immersed in this year's SXSW, taking part in various discussion panels and talks, as well as a signing for his new book 'Sound Unbound', and a full programme of avant-garde live appearances fusing live instruments, DJ-ing and visuals. We catch up with him in Part 2. The parting advice from our host, Matt Sonzala, is to stock up on sleep for a fortnight before your arrival, as you won't get any here!