Since it was first launched in 1987, the South by Southwest Music Festival has become the largest, most publicized music festival of its kind. And the tradition continues now that the ubiquitous iTunes has announced that it will launch its own music festival at this year's SXSW festival! 

CBS News is reporting that the iTunes Festival has been going on for the past seven years in London. It's a free concert series that, in its British incarnation, went on for a full month. The American version, which will launch March 11, will only go on for the duration of the SXSW festival. Confirmed performers include Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Keith Urban, ZEDD, and Pitbull. (There's a nice eclectic mix for you!)

"One of the cool things about trying to do the festival is that it's all about the music, the musicians and the fans," Eddy Cue, a top Apple executive, said to the New York Daily News. "You want it in a really close atmosphere where the fans are getting to see these musicians in places they'll never see them again, because they play in much bigger venues."

Cue also promised that other artists will be announced later on, as the festival draws near.

But while Coldplay called its inclusion in this year's lineup "a great honor," don't expect Mr. Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, to perform at any of the festivals anytime soon: in 2009, West performed as part of the iTunes lineup, but last week in New Jersey, West called out Apple CEO Tim Cook when he said, "Tim Cook, the head of Apple, stop trying to get performers to play your festivals for free, you are rich as f--k." 

South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of film, interactive, and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring (usually in March) in Austin, Texas, United States. It began in 1987, and has continued to grow in size every year. In 2011, the conference lasted for 10 days, with SXSW Interactive lasting for five, Music for six, and Film running concurrently for nine days.In addition to the three main South by Southwest festivals, the company runs three other conferences, two in Austin: SXSWedu, a conference on educational innovation, and SXSW Eco, an environmental conference; and one in Las Vegas: SXSW V2V, a conference focused on innovative startups.