Organizers of the annual SXSW festival say the city's hotel supply isn't enough to keep up with the growing festival.

The Austin Convention and Visitors' Bureau estimates that the city has 6,000 hotel rooms in the downtown area and 30,000 citywide, but for a festival with a registered attendance of 286,000, there simply aren't enough rooms to go around.

SXSW Executive Director Mike Shea told KXAN News that in 2011, the festival had to announce that all hotel rooms were sold out on February 1st. For this year, the announcement was made on December 1.

People looking for affordable places to stay have to be resourceful - and be willing to stay further away, in neighboring cities.

SXSW organizers say when they first started it they chose March because a lot of people would leave for Spring Break and businesses would be less crowded. Of course, now it's grown so much it's had the opposite effect and become a Spring Break destination.