HBO’s Elaborate SXSW Stunt Proves Its All in On Westworld
In recent years there have been a few guaranteed sights at Austin’s genre-friendly SXSW film festival: tacos, local beers, luxurious beards and, in some form or another, increasingly elaborate and interactive promotion for HBO’s fantasy juggernaut Game of Thrones. Iron Throne pedicabs, holographic Hall of Faces, or, one year, an alarmingly realistic VR trip up the Wall all signaled the arrival of a Westerosi Winter with the next season’s premiere always just right around the corner from SXSW’s March dates.
This year Thrones fans will have to wait until 2019, which means that instead of Westeros, HBO publicity put all its chips in on wild wild Westworld. An elaborately constructed interactive experience set in the dusty streets of Austin’s real-life ghost town transported fans of murderous robots and AI intrigue into their favorite show in a way no high-tech VR experience ever could. According to HBO’s marketing, the park is brimming with “60 actors, 6 stunt people and 5 bands, scouted primarily from the local Austin area, in addition to 6 local horses.” As Game of Thrones prepares to bow out, HBO is wise to pour as many of these bells and whistles as it can into trying to turn Westworld—which debuts its second season on April 22nd—into a dragon-sized hit.
Just 20 minutes outside of downtown Austin (or, more accurately, an hour thanks to rush hour and festival traffic), there sits a sprawling, two-acre ramshackle attraction called the J. Lorraine Ghost Town Manor where tourists and locals alike, eager for some old-timey flavor, could visit ramshackle facades of old. In a perfect marriage of marketing and location, HBO spent the last four months transforming the town into the familiar sights of their popular sci-fi Western town of Sweetwater complete, yes, with the Mariposa Saloon. And though HBO had previously put on “immersive” Westworld experiences at the San Diego and New York Comic-Cons, this was the first time the network had access to a location that so perfectly complimented its elaborately constructed robot fantasy.
Though guests throughout the weekend will explore the attraction during the sunshine-filled day, some members of the press were given a sneak peak Thursday night and the pitch black setting lent an extra air of menace to the ghost town with fog machines and real-life (occasionally skittish) horses keeping things as unpredictable as the occasionally glitching robotic cowboys. But while rage-filled gunslingers and saloon girls with big dreams of life outside the confines of Sweetwater may feel a little too familiar for the obsessive Westworld fan, HBO added a few sneak peeks into Season 2 to ramp up audience anticipation. Hidden behind a sliding door in a nondescript building at the back of town, visitors could find one of the eerier sights from next season’s promotional material, the so-called “drone host” which looks like it might inflict incredible damage.
Even more evocatively, sticking out among the hat and booted populace of Sweetwater, visitors found a silent, stalking Samurai, lending fuel to the notion that Westworld will further explore the Asian-themed park it hinted at in the Season 1 finale.
This version of Sweetwater was littered with even more interactive clues, hints, and Easter Eggs for fans to uncover—yet another perfect fit for a show rife with puzzling mysteries for viewers to unlock—serving as a reminder to all of us that when Westworld comes back we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled if we want to be one step ahead of both those violent delights and the even more violent ends.
