• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 9, 2013

The lines were maddeningly long and interminable Friday during the opening of SXSW Interactive in Austin, but this morning they look like Times Square on New Year's morning (see photo of registration area taken this morning). The only logical explanation was that Day One of the festival included not one, but two OMMA shows -- OMMA Mobile and OMMA Social -- and if we come back next year the SXSW organizers should account for the impact of OMMA. Seriously, it was an amazing turnout for the OMMA events -- packed to rafters. And unlike our going-in expectations that it would draw a lot of peripheral people from the interactive community, it was mainly agency and brand executives in attendance.