A view of the hangout area at the Convention Center, with beer, coffee and barbecue at one end, festival gear and a tech-head bookstore at the other, and wireless everywhere in between.

A constant sream of festival-goers kept the four-story escalator complex in the Austin Convention Center working hard all day, and sometimes late into the evening at the SXSW Film, Media and Music Festival. I'm headed downstairs, camera in hand, from a visit to the Filmmakers' Lounge, where free coffee, computers and valuable info is ready. About day 3, I finally got around to studying the free festival map provided by these folks, and spent a lot less time afterward lost and confused. Instead, like most of these folks, you may notice, I was studying the pocket film guide, deciding what to see next.