AUSTIN, USA – While other three and four letter acronym-named tech events are becoming stagnant or on the decline, the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas is moving in the opposite direction. But this isn’t your typical tech event, or really a tech event at all – It’s 10 days of music, film, and most recently, “interactive”. Anybody who is anybody in North America, or what seems like the world, wagons to Texas’s capital city each March for concerts, film premieres, seminars, forums, panels, parties, and some much needed sunshine. Nokia of course here in full effect. Click on after the break for the lowdown…

Nokia is taking over the Belmont Hotel on Sixth Street at the heart of downtown Austin. During the Interactive week we’ll announce a new project & website (details coming soon!), host some fun Angry Birds activities (see the teaser below), show off some new snowboarding apps, host some Q&A’s, run a treasure hunt, do some networking, dance to a DJ, and enjoy a very special live acoustic set from Chris Cornell. (WOW!)

In addition to activities at the Belmont, Nokia EVP Tero Ojanperä will be participating in a couple of panels on Sunday including talks on Mobile Gaming and “Future of Collective Intelligence: Location Location Location“. For our VIP’s we’ll sponsor a daily get together at a downtown rooftop bar. And some lucky few will be treated to an intimate talk with Tim Kring entitled “Finns, Friends & Film”.

We’ve invited eight bloggers to SXSW. Be sure to check out their updates on Twitter: Mark Guim of The Nokia Blog, Glenn Letham of GISuser, Clinton Jeff of ZOMGitsCj, Vaibhav Sharma of The Handheld Blog, Albert Hein of Mobile Livingroom, Mike Macias of The Mobile Fanatics, Andrew Currie Open Attitude, Juan Carlos Bagnell of Some Audio Guy, and David Chaitt of DavidChaitt.com. And be sure to follow all the Nokia SXSW highlights by following the #NokiaConnects hashtag.

If anyone follows me on Twitter, they know they madness I went through to get here. My American Airlines flight from London to Dallas spent six hours on the tarmac before we diverted to New York. 32 hours later, and after a few Zzz’s in the airport, I made it to Austin. I’m in need of some BBQ…

Any Conversations readers here in Austin? What is everyone most looking forward to?

And a few teasers for your viewing pleasure…

Rock