The South by Southwest (SXSW) music, film and interactive festival draws an affluent crowd of technology geeks and celebrities. The festival has been produced since 1987 by SXSW Inc., a private company based in Austin. The 2012 festival will take place from March 9 to March 18.

It is celebrated around the world as one of the great institutions of independent music, film and interactive media, drawing record labels, bloggers, booking agents, filmmakers, radio programmers and anyone else in search of the next cool thing. As it has grown, so has its attraction to corporate America.

For the music part of the festival about 2,000 acts play official showcases while many others sing from parking lots or street corners. During the height of the festival, the audience may include deal makers and gatekeepers across the music business, and a successful appearance, even if it’s in a small club, can ripple across old and new media.

Standing out from the pack isn’t easy. Some bands will offer free beer and barbecue, attach themselves to corporate sponsors or hitch their wagons to showcases and parties hosted by visiting dignitaries like Rachael Ray, Yoko Ono and Perez Hilton.

To maximize their exposure many bands are thrown into the 21st-century version of a work ethic out of the vaudeville era: multiple sets a day and plenty of glad-handing in between. Brand-name acts show up to stoke their careers. At this festival music is no job for a slacker.

Traditionally, Texas-based artists enjoy something of a home court advantage: they can draw huge audiences of locals who prefer the tried and true to checking out the supposed next big thing from Scandinavia.

Before the music comes the South by Southwest Interactive part of the festival, which offers a glimpse of some of the newest Web and mobile innovations.

For start-up hopefuls, capturing the fancy of the attendees is almost as important as checking out the panels and parties. The high concentration of tech savants supplies a rare opportunity for companies to woo the eyes and clicks of early adopters and influential Twitter users and bloggers capable of elevating their sites and services out of obscurity.

Their efforts have sometimes paid off: in 2007, a series of giant, glossy screens installed around the convention center displaying Twittermessages helped that service gather speed. Before that, the conference helped give blogging tools like Movable Type a boost among the digerati.

The festival also has a film component. In 2011, the 130 feature-length films included “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop,” a documentary directed by Rodman Flendera that follows Mr. O’Brien after his stint at “The Tonight Show” and his 32-city concert tour.