For 36 years, South by Southwest has been synonymous with one city: Austin, Texas. But this month the annual music, film and tech festival will launch a new event in Sydney – the first time it has been staged outside the US.
Running 15 to 22 October, the festival is being billed as “the official annual Asia-Pacific instalment of SXSW”. It’s a big win for a city that has faced its share of nightlife challenges in the past decade, especially given the prestige of the brand: the Austin festival is renowned as a breaking ground for new musicians, and a hub for film, tech and TV premieres, and has welcomed high-profile speakers from Prince to the Obamas across its three decades.
The inaugural Sydney program will bring more than 1,000 music gigs, film screenings, conference panels, and gaming and tech events to the harbour city. Conference highlights include a conversation with the Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker, and musician Chance the Rapper discussing 50 years of hip-hop. The screen program is led by the Australian red carpet premiere of The Royal Hotel, an outback thriller starring Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick as US backpackers working in a remote pub.
But the bill has fewer big names than Austin, and the tickets are pricey: $330 for the music stream, $195 for games and $280 for screen, with industry badges at close to $1,900 to experience “the best of everything”.
So is this a festival for punters or for the industry? What can you expect? Here’s a quick guide.
Why is SXSW happening here – and will it be different?
Plans to bring SXSW to Sydney have been under way since 2018 but were delayed by the pandemic, the chief programming officer, Hugh Forrest, tells Guardian Australia. Organisers wanted a way to tap into the Asia-Pacific region – particularly its valuable K-pop and tech markets, which haven’t had a huge presence in Texas in the past.
Hosting the event in Sydney – rather than, say, Seoul – was a strategic choice: the city has a “strong creative culture” and is a desirable tourist destination, for starters. And, Forrest says: “I think that we’re probably more comfortable with an English-speaking country.”
SXSW Sydney “generally follows the blueprint of what we do or what we have done in Austin” – with a few tweaks, he says. For one, the music program will be smaller: Sydney will host about 300 rising artists compared with Austin’s 1,500, with the biggest sets coming from Indonesia’s Feby Putri and homegrown acts such as the Terrys, Ben Lee and Barkaa. “Given how strong the tech industry is in Sydney, it makes sense to do a lot of tech stuff here,” Forrest says – but he hopes to grow the music stream in the next few years.
The city is smaller too. Most events in Sydney will be within a 25-minute stroll of each other, at venues between Darling Harbour and Broadway, with gigs and screenings taking place across 25 venues including the Lansdowne, Hotel Hollywood, Phoenix Central Park and the Abercrombie.
What’s in it for the industry?
The main event at SXSW is the daytime conference, which in Sydney will be held at the ICC, UTS and Powerhouse Museum from Monday to Sunday. More than 700 speakers will discuss topics including artificial intelligence, environmentalism and the future of tech, at events which also include workshops and official mentoring sessions. Other international speakers include the futurist Amy Webb, the Coachella chief executive, Paul Tollett, and the Slack co-founder Cal Henderson, with a local lineup led by Adam Goodes and Grace Tame.
But to get into the conference you’ll need a “badge”: SXSW’s most expensive ticket offering. Premium badges are now priced at $1,895 and get you into everything; there are also industry-specific badges (to the tech, music, gaming and screen streams) for sale at a $1,295 final release price. Forrest says he expects that typical badge holders are people in their 20s and 30s working in creative industries who, presumably, have their employer footing the bill.
The other option is for industry-specific wristbands, to get into game, music or screen festivals. With a music wristband, for instance, you can see every gig happening over four nights on the program for $330; and it’s just $40 to get into the tech expo at the ICC, home to product demonstrations, interactive installations and a spot for new businesses to court potential investors.
Larry Heath is associate producer at the music industry body Sounds Australia and has been to the Austin event 12 times. He says he wasn’t surprised by the event’s price point, as “that’s what the prices have been in Austin for a long time”.
“It’s a coup for Sydney to be hosting such an event,” Heath says – but it will take “a couple years” for the city, and its industries, to get their heads around the sheer scale of the program and how it functions.
“I was confused in the first year I went to SXSW Austin and learned on the go,” Heath says. “The only way to understand it is to go and experience it, because there really isn’t any event like it.”
Maggie Collins, who programmed the Brisbane music conference Bigsound for four years, says the music industry “just really wants [SXSW Sydney] to work”.
“Sydney’s cultural and musical landscape has been through so many dark times in the past decade and this event is a turning point,” Collins says, hoping for a space “where real collaborations, deals and partnerships can blossom”.
“An optimist would see it as a fantastic opportunity to have the eyes of the creative world look to this city for the influence it’s historically famous for. A pessimist would say that it’s a bold endeavour, and potentially too big a vision to successfully nail. But for an event of this scale to activate in as many streams as it is, in so many locations – and for the first time ever – I think you can always expect a few teething issues.”
And what about the rest of us?
Those looking to attend for pleasure are more likely to hit the roster of evening and weekend events – music gigs, movie screenings and gaming activations. Single-event tickets will be available closer to the event, though organisers haven’t locked in an on-sale date yet.
There are also a number of free events being held at Tumbalong Park throughout the week, including live music most nights and screenings of cult classic films that premiered at SXSW Austin over the past 35 years. But Heath says it’s also worth keeping an eye on unofficial events that are staged around the city over the next couple of weeks – from gigs to parties and screenings.
“I always tell people that are going without a badge to SXSW Austin, just wander the streets, see what’s happening. There’s always good stuff.”
How Sydney receives its own version is yet to be seen.
SXSW Sydney runs at various locations from 15 to 22 October
