At South by South­west Inter­ac­tive, hav­ing an event badge is a right of pas­sage. But for some, it’s just an unnec­es­sary acces­sory that is costly.

The tech world descends on Austin for five days dur­ing the inter­ac­tive por­tion of the fes­ti­val, which started Fri­day. And for some San Anto­ni­ans, the trek up Inter­state 35 is worth the trip, but the more than $700 needed to reg­is­ter is steep. Still, they don’t let that stop them. Many are able to party-hop, net­work and grab loads of free hand­outs with­out hav­ing to put a dent into their wallets.

Jen­nifer Navar­rete, the chap­ter founder of the San Anto­nio Social Media Club, has attended the fes­ti­val five times, some­times with a pass and other times with­out. This year, Navar­rete and her hus­band decided to forego the pricey badge. They were still able to meet peo­ple and attend events they had planned for.

“What­ever we wanted to get into we went to,” she said. “I ran into every­one I wanted to see, and the par­ties weren’t hard to get into. Some of it is serendip­ity, but I con­nected with peo­ple I only get to see a few times a year.”

As a whole, SXSW draws about 200,000 reg­is­trants and pan­elists to the nine-day event. It’s hard to say how many peo­ple attend the event with­out a badge, but sev­eral com­pan­ion events have emerged around the major ones, said Navar­rete, who went to var­i­ous par­ties and attended pan­els at the Capi­tol and at the Social Media Club house near the Austin Convention Center.

“If you don’t have the bud­get, you can still get a lot of value with­out a badge,” she added. “Per­son­ally, I don’t see any value.”

For the past five years, San Anto­nio native Veron­ica Morales has attended the tech por­tion of SXSW and has never pur­chased a badge. The social media spe­cial­ist, who is start­ing her own com­pany called The Social Being, said there’s a lot of plan­ning involved before she makes the trip to the festival.

“I do my home­work,” she said. “It has a lot to do with your research before­hand. If you just show up, you won’t get a lot out of the visit.”

She uti­lizes sites such as Foursquare and Plan­cast to meet peo­ple and to find out what events are pop­u­lar. Plus, she added, those that stay up with social media can direct peo­ple to free give­aways and contests.

“I have two shop­ping bags full of things,” she said.

First timer Lisa Baehr said the cost was the main rea­son she didn’t get a badge. The tech enthu­si­ast wanted to be a part of the event to learn about new, emerg­ing ideas. But, she added that because she didn’t have a badge she didn’t feel like she got to experience enough.

“I need to get a taste of it,” she said about the fes­ti­val. “It’s an ener­giz­ing event with a lot of new ideas. I’m con­sid­er­ing get­ting a badge next year because I think I’ll get more out of my visit.”

With a lan­yard around his neck, Choco Valdez just fits in with the crowd of badge hold­ers. The archi­tec­ture stu­dent takes full advan­tage of all the free food and drinks that spon­sors pro­vide through­out the event. This year was the sec­ond year Valdez has attended the inter­ac­tive por­tion with­out a badge. The plan­ning process for him started about five months ago and even included him cre­at­ing busi­ness cards that he could use to enter con­tests. So far, he won a pair of con­cert tick­ets, he said.

He doesn’t spend money on a hotel because he stays with fam­ily. And last year, the North­west Vista Col­lege stu­dent said he took $100 with him to the fes­ti­val and that he made it home spend­ing about $40. This time around his goal is to cut his spend­ing in half.

“I’m def­i­nitely get­ting my money’s worth,” he said.