South By Southwest Reveals ScreenBurn Beta Festival

South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive, an event for new technologies and web entrepreneurs, will host the ScreenBurn Beta Festival this year, at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival from March 10th to 14th in Austin, Texas. The ScreenBurn event is open to consumers and will feature early builds of unreleased games. In addition to demo kiosks, the ScreenBurn Beta Festival will also host panels by industry employees and allow for networking between fledgling game developers. Currently, no specific companies or speakers have been announced, though local companies such as id Software, NCsoft, and Midway Austin are obvious possible candidates for speaking roles. "We're very excited about the newest venture for SXSW Interactive," said SXSW Interactive Event Director Hugh Forrest. "It's going to give the Austin public who don't normally get to attend SXSW a chance to literally participate in the festivities by interacting with progressive gaming technology." The ScreenBurn Beta Festival, in addition to being open to the public, will be free of charge for admission, and more information will be available on its official website in the near future.