It begins: Barbecue, humanoid robots, and news from elsewhere

Good morning, South by Southwesterners!

Over the next 10 days, some 420,000 people are expected to descend upon Austin, Texas (which only has a population of about 950,000) for the music, film, and technology festival known as South by Southwest. This daily email from Quartz is your guide to the happenings in and around the first week of the festival, whether you’re at the event or following from afar.

The team in Austin includes tech reporter Mike Murphy, who once uncovered all the secret brands Amazon uses to sell things to us, and media business reporter Ashley Rodriguez, who’s obsessed with why we watch what we watch. Email us your tips and barbecue recommendations.

Cloudy skies are likely on the first day of the festival, but at least there’s a high of 74°F (23°C) expected. If you haven’t made it to Austin yet, make sure to pack for all seasons—hot days, chilly evenings, and rain showers are all in the forecast. Don’t forget sunscreen either. And don’t worry—when you show up at the airport, you’ll be able to get a Lyft or Uber—they’re back in Austin after a three-year hiatus.

Setting the scene

Today is the official start of the festival, but yesterday the streets of downtown Austin were littered with roving packs of tech bros in fleeces wearing their badges (even though there weren’t any events to attend), looking to find some authentic barbecue and breakfast tacos. (Locals tell us Torchy’s Tacos is overrated.)

The festival has three distinct sections. First comes the interactive event, focused on technology, the future, and this year, the blockchain (more on that later). Next up is the film festival, debuting feature-length, short, and documentary works from internationally renowned directors. There will also be some VR features thrown in this year. Finally, there’s SXSW’s original raison d’être: the music festival, where pretty much every bar and venue in the city will host musical acts every night of the week. Many careers of budding bands, filmmakers, and startups (think Twitter 11 years ago) have been made on the streets of Austin.

Also, happy belated International Women’s Day! Feminist movements like #MeToo are expected to be major themes at this year’s festival. Powerful women, including Christiane Amanpour, Katie Couric, Melinda Gates, Chelsea Manning, Kara Swisher, and YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki, will be front and center at many of the panels. Time’s Up and its legal defense fund will also take the stage later in the week.

What to watch for today

Off the chain. Nearly everyone at SXSW seems to have something to say about blockchain and cryptocurrencies. Joe Lubin, a co-founder of Ethereum, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrencies, will share his vision on why the technology will change the world this afternoon. It’s one of 20 happenings hosted by his company, ConsenSys, and there are plenty of other blockchain and cryptocurrency sessions on the docket.

Feel the Bern. US senator Bernie Sanders is making his first appearance at SXSW. The Vermont independent has kept busy since his failed presidential bid traveling the country, speaking out against Trump and the Republicans, and endorsing his fellow progressive leaders. He’ll speak with CNN anchor Jake Tapper about politics and the future of the country.

Friends or foes? Facebook is a gift and a curse for publishers that rely on it to reach audiences around the world. Alex Hardiman, head of news product at the social network, will sit down with Axios’s Sara Fischer, CNN’s Brian Stelter, and Magnify Media’s Steve Rosenbaum to talk about its grip on the media, its “fake news” problem, and what’s next for publishers on the platform.

A pass for the movies. MoviePass, a subscription service that makes going to the movies as cheap as Netflix, has started investing in films that it expects will play well with its customers. Its first project, an art heist film it picked up at Sundance which it’s co-distributing with indie distributor The Orchard, starts screening at the SXSW Film Festival tonight. The company plans to invest in about a dozen movies this year.

🎉 Party planner 🎸 Since today is the official kickoff of SXSW, there are a ton of parties. Here are some of the opening-night parties we’re monitoring and where they are: the official SXSW opening party (Micheladas); Vox Media (The Belmont); New York Times Magazine (Irene’s); CNN (The Market); Texas Monthly (the Yeti store); and BuzzFeed’s AM2DM party at the Twitter house on Rainey St.

If you can’t be here with us in person, SXSW is livestreaming keynotes with folks like Melinda Gates, filmmaker Barry Jenkins, and some of the other high-profile sessions. Brose the full schedule here.

What everyone is talking about

Live without limits. HBO recreated the fictional theme park from its TV series Westworld, where guests live out their wildest fantasies in the company of unsettlingly realistic robots in a simulation of the old American West. Visitors will be shuttled from downtown Austin to a two-acre park outside the city, where they can interact with real people acting as the humanoid “hosts” (as least that’s what they’re telling us) and hunt for clues about what’s to come in season two, which begins April 22. The immersive experience runs March 9-11 and is for badge holders only. Spots are filling up quickly.

Quartz caught a press preview and it did not disappoint. The experience pulls each guest into their own storyline, complete with black and white hats (both Ashley and Mike were assigned black), scrumptious old fashioned cocktails, and ominous and enigmatic clues from the hosts. There are, however, at least two rules: don’t touch anyone and don’t break anything. As Quartz previously reported, building a real-life Westworld is neither easy nor cheap, but totally worth it.

Ready Player One. Back in downtown Austin, Warner Bros., with the HTC Vive and TheWaveVR, a social VR platform, built a virtual rave inspired by the Ernst Cline book Ready Player One. The upcoming film based on the book, directed by Steven Spielberg, will debut in the US on March 29. The rave simulates the experience of a zero-gravity club where partygoers can soar above the dance floor and interact with others using VR. Actor Tye Sheridan, who plays the protagonist in the film, was the guest DJ at a press preview last night. The experience opens to the broader SXSW public this evening at Brazos Hall, along with other activations tied to the movie.

News from around the world

Donald Trump agreed to meet with Kim Jong-un. It would be the first time a sitting US president has met with a North Korean leader. South Korean officials, speaking at the White House, said the meeting would take place by May. They added that Kim had agreed to halt nuclear and missile tests and was committed to denuclearization.

Barack Obama is in talks with Netflix. The former president is reportedly mulling a partnership deal with the streaming service, either as a moderator or as a producer of a show about uplifting American stories. Getting Obama would be a coup for Netflix, and give the former president a platform to reach a big global audience.

11 countries signed an Asia-Pacific trade pact in Chile. The signatories of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership forged ahead with the deal despite the US pulling out. Officials from Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam attended a ceremony in Santiago.

Matters of debate

Trump’s trade threats are just bluster. Much like the Muslim ban and the US-Mexico border wall, the president is writing checks he can’t cash.

Uber drivers should earn more, period. Their shockingly low pay and lack of benefits and protections put Uber jobs in a category more akin to the shadow economy than the gig economy.

To-do lists try to do too much. We often over-expand the simple checklist with tasks that we should leave to other modern tools (paywall).

Surprising discoveries

NASA found mega-cyclones on Jupiter. The massive polar storms form steady, synchronized patterns across the planet’s surface.

Fake news travels six times faster than the truth on Twitter. An MIT study found that people, not bots, are most likely to share false information.

Leopards are solving a stray-dog problem in Mumbai. Researchers believe the leopards keep rabies in check since dogs make up 40% of their diet.

Our best wishes for an inspiring day in Austin. Please send any news, tips, barbecue recommendations, and creepy robots to us, Ashley, and Mike. The best way to keep up with news while you’re on the go this week is the Quartz app for iPhone and Android.