Since 2007, Apple has put on a live concert series each year, under the moniker “iTunes Festival”. The concerts are free to go to, and are also streamed for free on all Apple devices, including the Mac and Apple TV. The concerts have always been held in London, where it has seen enormous success with over 400,000 visitors since 2007.

2014 will be the first year where the concert series is held outside of London. This year it will happen March 11-15 at SXSW (South by Southwest) in Austin, Texas. The event will be held at the Moody Theatre in downtown Austin.

From the press release:

“The iTunes Festival in London has become an incredible way for Apple to share its love of music with our customers,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “We’re excited about the incredible lineup of artists performing and SXSW is the perfect place to debut the first iTunes Festival in the US.”

Musical Guests

Over the years, the iTunes Festival has had several of the biggest names in music perform on stage, including Justin Timberlake, Brittany Spears, and Lady Gaga. This year the Festival will include Coldplay, Pittbull, Imagine Dragons, Keith Urban, and Zedd, with additional acts to be announced later.

SXSW

In the tech-sphere we mostly know SXSW as a technology party where startups can show off their stuff to potential investors and the public. A ton of brands have launched and/or gotten popular at SXSW over the years including Twitter and Foursquare.

That SXSW is just part of the actual event, a separate event is put on for music related quests, and another for film. This will be, perhaps, the first year the music event overshadows the tech event, at least in the tech press.

SXSW starts March 7 and goes to March 16.

Can’t Make it to Austin?

Getting to Austin can be a huge pain, and once you do get there you’ll have to put up with hundreds of thousands of people wandering the streets, and attending the events. If you can’t get there or don’t want to deal with the crowds, Apple will be streaming the event live and on demand for people who use their platforms.

It can be done through iTunes on the Mac, or through the dedicated iTunes Festival app on the iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV. Apple streams all the events for free. They started the event in order to bring more traffic and sales to their iTunes music store, and (according to Apple) to give back to the fans of music and Apple.