AUSTIN, Texas, March 9, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The South By Southwest (SXSW) Music and Media Conference and Festival proudly announces multi-platinum selling, five-time Grammy-winning artist Lady Gaga as the keynote for the 2014 event. The keynote conversation, to be led by John Norris of Fuse, takes place on Friday, March 14, 2014 at 11:00 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Hilton Austin – Downtown. 

Lady Gaga's contributions to the music industry have garnered her numerous achievements including five Grammy Awards amongst fifteen nominations, thirteen MTV Video Music Awards amongst twenty-six nominations, and the estimated sale of 27 million albums and 130 million singles worldwide. The annual keynote is one of the most highly anticipated events at SXSW, and with this Lady Gaga joins an impressive roster of past keynote speakers including such music legends as Lou Reed, Dave Grohl, and Bruce Springsteen. 

Lady Gaga's keynote will be open to Music and Platinum registrants and Showcasing Artist wristbands, and follows her prior night's performance on the Doritos #BoldStage at Austin's legendary Stubb's benefitting the Born This Way Foundation.

Lady Gaga came to prominence following the release of her debut studio album The Fame (2008), which sold over 15 million copies worldwide. She has travelled the world on numerous tours including 2008's The Fame Ball, 2009-2011's The Monster Ball and 2012-2013's Born This Way Ball. An HBO television special titled Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour: At Madison Square Garden earned an Emmy Award amongst its five nominations. Her third studio album, Born This Way, broke the iTunes record for the fastest rise to the #1 on release day.

In 2013, Time Magazine named her the second most influential person of the decade. With over 2.7 billion combined views of all her videos online, Lady Gaga is one of the biggest living forces in social media with over 63 million likes on Facebook and over 41 million followers on Twitter. She is also a global activist and philanthropist, having been an outspoken supporter of many important issues including LGBT rights, HIV/AIDS awareness, body image issues, and youth empowerment. In 2011, she launched her own Born This Way Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to empowering youth and creating a kinder and braver world. In 2011 she also built & launched a social network just for her fans, LittleMonsters.com.

Lady Gaga is the only artist in the digital era to top the 5 million sales mark with her first two hits. Lady Gaga's fourth studio album, ARTPOP, was released on November 11, 2013 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 258,000 copies sold in its first week, earning Lady Gaga her second consecutive number-one album; to this date it has sold 2.3 million copies worldwide. For Lady Gaga, ARTPOP is a self-described reverse Warholian expedition. Later this month, Lady Gaga is scheduled for a hometown residency, playing a record-setting number of shows at New York City's Roseland Ballroom before it closes its doors forever. Starting in May, Lady Gaga will once again travel the world embarking on her fourth world tour entitled: artRave: The ARTPOP Ball.  


South By Southwest (SXSW) Music Conference and Festival, the world's leading music industry event, offers attendees the opportunity to explore the future of the music industry during the day at panels, talks, the Trade Show, Music Gear Expo and other conference activities at the Austin Convention Center. At night, the absolute best mix of musical performances from over 2,200 regional, national and international acts will take place at the nighttime music festival. Altogether, SXSW presents unmatched networking opportunities, career-building conference programming and over 100 stages of music for showcasing bands and conference attendees. SXSW Music takes place Tuesday, March 11 - Sunday, March 16, 2014 in Austin, Texas. For more information on every aspect of SXSW, please go to http://www.sxsw.com.   

SXSW Music 2014 is sponsored by Miller Lite, Sonicbids, Monster Energy, Esurance, Chevrolet, AT&T, IFC, Subway and The Austin Chronicle.



For more information about this announcement, please contact Elizabeth Derczo at [musicpress@sxsw.com] or 512/467-7979 x 209

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