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Visual Goodness from Austin's Hotel St. Cecilia

Where: 112 Academy Dr [map], Austin, TX, United States, 78704

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Guide to the Hotel Lobby Scene at SXSW

Holy growth spurt. HotelChatter had not graced the halls of the Austin Convention Center for SXSWi in six years, but when the opportunity knocked to head to Austin for 36 hours of south by madness we jumped on a plane, and my has the interactive portion grown. No longer confined to the closets of the convention center the 2010 gathering was spread out over three hotels and the convention center. Of course, this made for a crazy hotel scene, the bell of the ball, Foursquare, even offered a "hookup" badge if you hit enough hotels late at night.

As far as price, let's get this out of the way up front, any hotel on this list is going to cost you 2 or 3 times the usual rate if you try to book during SXSW.

Here is our guide to the who and what of this years SXSW Austin hotel lobby scene. Who we spotted where, and what lobbies registered the highest signal to noise ratio. Oh, and don't think just because SXSWi is over you can't use this for the Music and Film portion of the festival, which starts today.

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After Social Media Overload at SXSW, Here's Where We Slept Last Night

Where: 112 Academy Drive [map], Austin, TX, United States, 78704

It's our SXSW Hotel revealed!

HotelChatter was only in Austin for one night of SXSW but we ended up scoring one of the 14 rooms at the Hotel St. Cecilia. This here is room #8, one of the three studio rooms.

We liked the spaciousness of the room and the hard wood floors (the fur rugs didn't bother us but they may bother PETA.) We also dug the view of Austin from the semi-private back porch area.

The hotel is about a 15-minute walk to the Convention Center, which seems do-able but was made miserable today by pouring rain. Still, the hotel's super cool design and attention to detail won out here. And the fact that it was super quiet. No Foursquare-Gowalla showdowns here.

Room rates are a little pricey, about $350 for a studio room (on a non-SXSW weekend) but there is free WiFi and free parking. Hallelujah!

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Austin's New Vinyl-Friendly Saint Cecilia Spins Us Right 'Round

Where: 112 Academy Drive [map], Austin, TX, United States, 78704

We have to begin this post by saying that Austin's newest boutique property, Hotel Saint Cecilia, has one of the coolest hotel websites we've seen in a long time. Seriously; check it out: it has an old school cinematic vibe and it just swallows you up into the hotel's whole vintage-chic ambiance. We love it.

That said, this newcomer onto the Austin hotel scene is named for the patron saint of music and poetry — appropriate for Texas' coolest art and culture hotspot. Accordingly, the 14-room hotel features little odes to the art forms throughout: from killer soundsystems in the rooms — equipped with both turntables and iPod docks — to a library chock full of films and books on poetry, poets and musicians and an extensive collection of vinyls available for guests to check out and bring to their rooms.

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