Q: I keep seeing the letters "SXSW" on entertainment blogs lately. What is it? — Gerry of Carlsbad, Calif.

A: That would be South by Southwest. The festival is a one-stop shop for all things entertainment, from movies to music to television to tech.

SXSW is held in Austin, Texas, and it's going on right now. It really is the little festival that could. At its 1987 inception about 1,000 people attended. This week the number climbed to over 150,000.

The film component alone offers 250 sessions with 750 speakers. Speakers have included Lena Dunham, Matthew McConaughey, Danny Boyle, Seth MacFarlane and Amy Schumer.

For years the films showcased were mostly independent. Comedian and actor Fred Armisen began his comic career with the short film "Fred Armisen's Guide to Music and SXSW," released in 1998. In it he posed as various characters, asking silly questions of musicians and other attendees. A few years back the major studios decided to roll out some of their productions in Austin to gauge audience reaction, including: "Furious 7," "Neighbors," "Chef," "21 Jump Street," "Cabin in the Woods," "Bridesmaids" and "Insidious," and the TV shows "Girls," "Silicon Valley" and "Penny Dreadful." "The Hurt Locker," which went on to win the Academy Award for best picture, debuted at SXSW in 2009.

New media are a big part of the conference as well. In 2007, Twitter, which was already up and running but not widely known, saw a big bump after presenting at the festival. In 2011, Mike Tyson attended to hawk his iPhone/iPad game.

The festival also stays politically relevant. In 2014, Edward Snowden, famous for leaking thousands of National Security Agency documents, gave a speech via video stream from Russia, where he has been granted asylum.

On March 13, 2014, a drunk driver, Rashad Charjuan Owens, drove his car into a crowd of festival attendees while trying to evade a traffic stop. Four people died and 23 others were injured. Owens was given an automatic sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

On March 11, 2016, Barack Obama gave a speech in which he called on the technology industry to help solve many of America's problems — by upgrading outdated networks, helping balance security and privacy and resolving the FBI-Apple encryption dispute.

John Travolta and Ethan Hawke also attended this year.

The festival's name is an homage to the great Alfred Hitchcock thriller "North by Northwest."

To find out more about Lynda Hirsch and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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