SXSW Austin: From Ferris Wheel To Tie Fighter From Star Wars

AUSTIN, TX -- It’s not every day one sees a Ferris wheel set up smack dab in the middle of downtown Austin. These are no ordinary days, though, but rather the week in which SXSW is in full swing.

The sheer scale of the Ferris wheel alerts to the magnitude of the SXSW technology, music and arts festival itself. It’s of good height, respectable enough for an attraction of its type.

Actually, it's more than respectable: A 100-foot high, Coney Island-style bona fide Ferris wheel.

Best part: It’s free to ride until 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Lines weren't long either, perhaps as millennials eschew this old-school piece of Americana-style entertainment for the bells and whistles of more modern and newfangled technology being featured during the 10-day event.

But what do they know.

Something else has been installed, but a warning to Star Wars fans: If you’re not sitting down, please do so as your head might very well explode.

You ready?

Disney has set up a to-scale replica of a tie fighter from Star Wars. As Verge reports, it’s a shameless attempt at marketing by the Disney folks, the writer viewing the replica as the embodiment of SXSW becoming “...more of a marketing free-for-all than an actual conference or festival.”

The writer describes the scene with palpable disdain despite a plethora of accompanying photos of the thing that no doubt assists those marketing efforts. Ironic.

But who cares? It’s a replica of a TIE FIGHTER FROM STAR WARS.

Indeed, it is a promotional gimmick, the 20-foot thing built to promote The Force Awakens coming to home video next month.

A behind-the-scenes documentary as part of the release is having its world premiere at SXSW among a slew of other films being screened.

The tie fighter is at 604 Driskill Street next to the South Bites trailer park, guarded by Storm Troopers or, rather, actors in Storm Troopers costume. But you better hurry, Star Wars fans: The fighter's only there until today, Sunday.

Here's a full SXSW schedule of events, to please all -- from us simple folk who enjoy a Ferris wheel to the sophisticated tech mavens continually awed by the aforementioned newfangled things.

>>> Image of tie fighter replica from the official Disney blog; photo of Ferris wheel by Tony Cantu,