South by South-West or SXSW if you prefer, is the legendary festival taking place in Austin Texas.
It has a reputation for wild music shows which helped launch everyone from Florence and the Machine to Billie Eilish to The White Stripes, as well as a film programme which premiered films like The Cabin in the Woods and Bridesmaids (Bill Murray once famously started serving drinks behind the bar at one venue), and talks across business, politics and tech by the likes of Barack Obama and Mark Zuckerberg.
And in 2025 it’ll be coming to east London. SXSW London is taking place from 2-7 June across over 30 venues, effectively turning Shoreditch into a giant festival hosting events across music, film, art, tech, fashion, art and business.
Something for everyone? Well, everyone does everything these days don’t they? Arts, style, tech, entrepreneurship, all coming together in a world where people know they must harness different disciplines at the same time in order to stay ahead.
The latest news on the festival is that Canva have come onboard as partners to the festival and will be opening the doors to their new HQ in Hoxton, which will have a new event space, to the festival audience.
“The way we see it is South by Southwest is really about bridging the gap between tech and business and creativity,” says Duncan Clark, Head of Europe, Canva, “That's incredibly closely aligned with how Canva sees the world. We're a technology platform used by businesses to increase their creativity, and break through in new ways.
So for us, there's an amazingly exciting fit. We have worked with South By around the world before, but we're really excited about South by arriving in London, which is exactly where we've been scaling up our team.
South by are all about how do you bring business leaders and creatives together. It's really where all the different streams of modern culture come together.”
This is perhaps what will make SXSW stand out on the London events scene. It’s quite a hard thing to cover culture and business, and make it cool; but South By has been steering events away from corporate conference world into punkier territory since 1987.
Canva sees it as the kind of overlapping event that reflects its own growth. They have a staggering 225 million users every month around the world, including 70 million users who are students and teachers, and hundreds of thousands of not-for-profits using it for free.
“We see ourselves at the middle of several overlapping communities across creativity, says Clark, “So we're really keen on this idea that wherever we have a physical presence. We are like a compelling centre where we can bring those communities together to learn, to inspire each other.
This festival is a great fit not just for Canva, but also for London which is trying to position itself as a centre for AI and the creative future.”
And this the thing that makes 2025 such a perfect time for SXSW to arrive. Keir Starmer is making a big dance over leading the way with AI, Rachel Reeves wants to build the new Silicon Valley between Oxford and Cambridge; but for us Londoners this kind of melting pot of innovation is around us every day.
“I think one of the trends that we're seeing is that individuals with an audience whether they're social media influences or musicians, they have their own communities and they speak to them directly and they can engage them in new ways,” says Clark on his perspective, “We're seeing all sorts of things like working with record labels to let the audiences design the album art for a band. That brings that audience really close to the artist.
.jpeg?trim=302%2C0%2C2885%2C0)
I think what South By has always been about is the collision of different disciplines and ideas. Whether that's connecting people or sparking new innovative ideas or whether it's just pulling people outside of their day-to-day; they might be marketers but actually engaging with music and film gives them new ideas and new perspectives.
It's really about that combination of the power of community and the power of juxtaposing different creative disciplines and different business disciplines.
But I think what's unique here is about bringing a whole area to life.”
Well indeed, and Shoreditch is certainly going to be the place to be when June hits. Exciting times for events, exciting times for London.
For more information and latest news on artists appearing visit: https://sxswlondon.com
Tickets for SXSW London are here : https://passes.sxswlondon.com/2025
