So far, the festivals are on track to match last year's attendance of 13,000, according to Elizabeth Derczo, a South by Southwest official. "We're expecting what we had last year and not much more," she tells GlobeSt.com.

Hotels and restaurants wouldn't mind more, but they'll take what they can get this year. Average occupancy dropped 14.7% in 2001 from 2000 and average RevPAR fell 14.6%. Average room rates, however, were off just 1.7%. Cynthia Maddox, marketing director of the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, says Austin hotels didn't discount as much as hoteliers in other cities did.

While the Sept. 11 aftermath played a part in the dropping rates, they were falling throughout the year because of Austin's faltering economy. The citywide occupancy rate was off 17% in August from August 2000 and dropped 28.5% in September from September 2000. That, says Maddox, was a "fantasy year," a time when the Austin economy was puffed up to the maximum and before the bubble burst.

So the South by Southwest is eagerly awaited by those who depend on travelers. "It's significant," Maddox says. "It fills hotel rooms, it fills the convention center, it's 10 days of not being able to get into a restaurant."

The festivals also bring media coverage that the city might not otherwise receive, she says. The New York Times is scheduled to run a story about Austin in its Sunday travel section in the coming weeks, "the third time they've had something about Austin in little more than a year," she says.

Derczo says registrations for South by Southwest are running about the same as they were last year at this time. In 2001, about 3,000 attended the movie portion, 3,000 attended the interactive portion and 7,000 attended the music portion. Those numbers are for people who have registered to attend the conferences and does not count others who attended the entertainment events.