Live music preview: Seven SXSW day parties not to miss in 2025

What’s South By Southwest without daytime shenanigans? For every year’s SXSW installment, different activations pop up all over the city to bring SX-goers daytime programming before things switch over to an all-official format in the evening. These day Parties mostly feature cover-free programming, sometimes even featuring official SXSW artists that give opportunities to non-credentialed music fans to join in on the festivities during the week. All listed events occur between 12 p.m. and 7 p.m., are free for attendees, and no badge is required, subject to capacity. Make sure to RSVP to guarantee entry to the events. Be sure to check our SXSW 2025 page for more day parties to attend. 

Spring Break Boogie – Hotel Vegas – March 10 – 12

A day party series that has become a SXSW mainstay, indie rock lovers of all kinds flock to the Austin East Side to experience both touring acts and local music staples. This three-day offering will include the likes of Austin outfits in the realm of Tear Dungeon, Strange Lot, Mugger, Porcelain, and Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol, along with SXSW official artists making their way to Austin in the likes of Frankie & The Witch Fingers, TVOD, La Sécurité, Rosegarden Funeral Party, and SX alumni Twin Tribes. The Austin venue will feature three stages with all-day-all-night programming, a spot worthy of hours of your festival experience. Spring Break Boogie will take place March 10 – 12, all around the clock. No RSVP is required for these events. 

The Psychedelic Plants Clash 3 & Webberville Block Party 3 – 13th Floor & East Side stages The Cavalier and Webberville House – March 11 and 15

Come party SXSW style with The Cosmic Clash team twice, with two-day parties with both national and local talent. First up is The Psychedelic Plants Clash at The 13th Floor on Red River in downtown Austin. A venue right in the center of the SXSW action, presented by The Cosmic Clash & local promoter Play To The Plants. For March 11, The Psychedelic Plants Clash comes with a bill that will feature local psych revivalists The Holy Temple, outlaw collective Mulch Cult, Austin-Salt Lake City My Education-Theta Naught offshoot Sound Mass, and Bushwick’s My Son The Doctor. The event will also feature former Austin Chronicle music editor turned cannabis columnist Kevin Curtin, who will take over emcee duties for the daytime extravaganza. 

The Webberville Block Party will be a multi-stage event on the last day of the SXSW music festival on 3/15. Since the tragic departure of local metal stronghold The Lost Well, the final Webberville Block Party will be between a stage located inside Webberville eatery and bar The Cavalier and a backyard stage at the Webberville House next door to Cavalier. This year’s chapter will feature NYC’s YHWH Nailgun, Philly indiegaze risers Her New Knife, Austin gothic rockers The Opera, indie experimentalists Matador Sphere, and Brazilian shoegaze group Terraplana. 

You can RSVP to the Cosmic Clash / Play To The Plants events via Eventbrite. No RSVP is required for the Webberville Block Party. Both events will run from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. 

Fiesta Destructo – Hotel Vegas – March 15

For the last Saturday of SXSW, the Denver-based Swamp Co. will bring the 23rd Anniversary of Fiesta Destructo, perhaps the heaviest downtown music opportunity during the week of music programming. For the 2025 installment, Destructo alumni High on Fire will make a triumphant return to the Hotel Vegas stage, along with Texas punk legacy heavy-hitters Riverboat Gamblers. Locals in the vein of Tear Dungeon and Gus Baldwin & The Sketch will also join the lineup, preparing for a domino effect that will make for some daytime moshing as attendees prepare to send off their festival week with a bang. Fiesta Destructo will run from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. No RSVP is required for this event. 

Third Man Records & Creem Two-Day Showcase – The 13th Floor – March 13 and 14

Jack White-founded record label and Creem Music magazine will again join forces for this year’s SXSW music festival edition. Joining the bill this time will feature rock and roll from all over, including local punk rock sensations Die Spitz, New York City’s Native Sun, Los Angeles neo-psychedelia powerhouses Wand, Her New Knife, The Cosmic Clash-named buzz band TVOD, and more. Last year’s edition featured boxed-in performances on The 13th Floor’s patio that incite all-out mayhem on the Red River Cultural District stomping grounds, making for some of the most memorable daytime sets of the week. Both showcases will run from 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at The 13th Floor on Red River in downtown Austin. RSVP link is available here.

Marshall Day Party – Mohawk – March 12

Marshall Amplifiers and Austin promoter Resound Presents will join forces for a single-day excursion that will bring Austin Darkwave extraordinaries Urban Heat, Manchester art/post-rock creationists Maruja, nu-gaze face-melters Fleshwater, and SX official Marshall signees Gen & The Degenerates. The showcase will also feature collaborations with Waterloo Records, Bad Larrys Burgers, Feels So Good, Cold Ones Popsicles, and more to make the Red River Cultural District staple venue a must-attend in the series of before-sundown programming. The Marshall event will run from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. RSVP available here.

Stoner Jam – The Far Out Lounge & Stage – March 13

A trip to South Austin during SXSW? Worth it for this onslaught of some of the heaviest music the Austin scene has to offer. Spread across two stages and 24 bands that specialize in everything that is maximum guitar riffage, the 2025 edition of Stoner Jam is the perfect place to camp out for the day before heading back downtown for the evening events. Joining the two-stager rager will include Duel, Bridge Farmers, Amplified Heat, Castle Club, The Oxys, Sudden Deaf, Slumbering Sun, and more. This event requires no RSVP and will kick off at 12 p.m. Sidenote: Parking is limited at The Far Out, and rideshares are encouraged.

Featured photo by Troy Gonzales