South By Southwest is a company that organizes conferences, trade shows, festivals and other events such as the  über popular SXSW Music, SXSW Film, SXSW Interactive, SXSWedu, and SXSWeco.

Starting March 9 until March 18, Austin, Texas will be jumping as SXSW officially starts on Friday.  SXSWInteractive will be on March 9-13, SXSWFilm will be on March 9-17, and SXSWMusic will be on March 13-18.

So what are the things to look forward to at this year’s SXSW?

Home For Startups

SiliconANGLE editor Kristen Nicole did an awesome article in November last year, How SXSW is Branching Out for Startups, wherein she discussed SXSW’s Startup Village – a place “solely for startups, where good ideas, an eager public and even a few curious investors will be able to congregate at any point during the conference.”

The Startup Village is located at the fourth floor of the Austin Downtown Hilton and will include the SXSW Accelerator program that showcases some of the web’s most exciting new innovations.  The Startup Village will also host its own panel programming and workshops designed to educate budding and current entrepreneurs on best practices and lessons learned.  And the Startup Village will also feature mentoring and coaching sessions and lounge areas.

Kid-friendly SXSW

SXSW is viewed by many as an adult event and not a place to bring your kids but over the years, there are more and more booths that cater to both adults and children.  This year, some companies have chosen SXSW’s ScreenBurn Arcade  as the launch venue for the latest kids’ toys.

So here are some of the booths  LiveMom thinks that you and your kids might enjoy:

• Airy Labs – Kids ages 5-13 are invited to play test educational, mobile games, meet Airy Lab’s founder Andrew Hsu, become an Airy Lab “junior scientist” for an hour and to pick up some kiddie swag. You can RSVP on the Airy Lab Facebook page to attend orRSVP for your child to be a game tester.

• Draw a Stickman/HitCents.com – Kids draw a stickman, which comes to life and goes on adventures (caution: addicting for adults!)

• Gamestar Mechanic by E-line – Gamestar Mechanic enables kids to design their own games. The booth will feature live demos of student-made games, plus game-making stations ready for kids to build their own games. Hour-long presentations showcasing games kids have developed plus live game development will take place Friday at 5 and 6 p.m., Saturday at 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

• Settlers of Catan – In this board game, players are new arrivals to an island called Catan and build colonies by creating cities, roads and villages and trading with other players for sheep, lumber, bricks and grains, among other items.

• Minecraft tee Meet-N-Greet – Mojang, the creators of Minecraft, have collaborated with SXSWi to host a meet and greet with Mojang’s Director of Fun from Sweden. The event takes place Sunday, March 11th from 12-12:45pm. Swag will be available.

• Stormtroopers from the Star Garrison of the 501st Legion – will be at Palmer on Saturday and Sunday during the Bioware panel (see below).

• A Lego “pit” – Check out this video to get an idea of what the pit looks like.

Stay tuned as we cover SXSW Interactive from start to end.  For more about SXSW, checkout SXSW Music Infographic: Where Do All Those Bands Come From?, and the First-Timers Guide to SXSW for more information.  You can also learn more about SXSW by following them on Twitter @sxsw and Like the SXSW Page on Facebook.