As inaugural SXSW London wraps, organizers stay up for subsequent 10 years

Over the years, spin-offs have popped up in Portland, Toronto, Tucson and, extra just lately, Sydney, Australia, which can welcome its 3rd crop of attendees this October.

This week, its long-rumored London version in spite of everything come to fruition, swapping the Texan staples of a Stetson and breakfast tacos for… no matter it’s that London’s Shoreditch is most famed for to you: salt pork beigels, Brick Lane curry properties, Hoxton hipsters, pints within the Owl & Pussycat, Amazon employees of their gilets.

It’s too early to inform precisely what number of punters had been enticed to the competition’s 34 venues, 500 classes, 100 movie screenings and 1,000 audio system, however for an inaugural trip, the array of audio system and acts is spectacular: gigs from Nile Rodgers, Tems and Erykah Badu; speaker appearances from Deepak Chopra, Dr Jane Goodall and Jimmy Wales. (For some, the speaker program has proved a bit of too broad-church, with some artists mentioning “artwashing” whilst pulling out of the competition, following “unannounced” panels that includes former high ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair).

SXSW is going east

For the broader SXSW emblem, global growth would possibly turn out to be a vital diversification. With its long-term Texas house the Austin Convention Center closed for the following 3 years for upgrades, subsequent 12 months’s house competition will glance moderately other and could also be curtailed. It’s a logistical headache for organizers that comes now not lengthy after tricky pandemic years that resulted in a “lifeline” deal for a “long-term partnership” with new majority house owners Penske Media Corporation again in 2021.

That long-term partnership is now echoed in SXSW’s growth into London. This week’s London tournament is the primary in a 10-year-long licensing care for the mum or dad emblem in Austin to broaden the development in Europe. The UK staff has been tooling up in earnest for a minimum of 18 months main as much as the development, with managing director Randel Bryan (a veteran of the likes of Universal Pictures and Endemol Shine) approaching board in January of remaining 12 months, advertising director Clare Morris (previously of Cannes Lions) arriving in September and leader exec Max Alexander (latterly of immersive enjoy area Secret Cinema) this January.

With all of Europe on be offering, Morris and Bryan advised The Drum this week that it needed to be London – and it needed to be Shoreditch. Why? Because of London’s position as a portal to such a lot of Europe and the remainder of the arena. “London’s the first global city,” says Morris. “Austin is a destination that has worked fantastically well for the US market. And while they do have an international delegate base, it’s not the dominant delegate [portion]. Sydney isn’t that easy to get to, although it’s servicing a particular region. So the first real global city that’s in the portfolio is London. We can see that in the delegate base: about 55% of our delegate base is international. We’ve got 56 countries in attendance, from Portugal to Peru, Belgium to Brazil.”

Then there’s Shoreditch: various and a point of interest for the entire various corners of artwork and trade that SXSW works laborious to knit in combination. Up the street in Old Street, ‘Silicon Roundabout,’ the place such a lot of tech gamers cluster. Down the street, the City of London right kind. A few miles to the east, the arena’s most sensible film post-production venues. And proper there in Shoreditch, probably the most country’s absolute best gig venues and golf equipment. All round, companies, entrepreneurs and tradition makers of each stripe (together with, in fact, The Drum HQ).

But what makes London so horny additionally makes it difficult: in all probability no competition may ever take over the town, or perhaps a group, within the method of SXSW Austin. That leaves two choices: some of the town’s megaconference venues, just like the Excel or the newly refurbished Olympia, or courageous the complexity of a multi-site competition in some of the global’s busiest towns. Only the latter may paintings for the SXSW emblem, says Morris. “Yes, a multi-site festival is challenging,” she says. “It would have been much easier for us to have gone to Excel or Olympia. But that’s not what SXSW the brand is about.”

What the organizers need it to be about as a substitute is wrapped up within the fest’s strapline: ‘beautiful collisions.’ Bryan says that the core function used to be to mirror and inspire East London’s cross-pollinatory surroundings. “In London, we don’t have separation in our creative and tech industry. It’s not like all fashion happens in Knightsbridge and all film production happens in Shoreditch. Our creative and tech industries rub shoulders with each other every day. That’s what we really try to celebrate at the festival… We wanted to make sure we didn’t have enclaves of different scenes, separated away on different campuses.”

SXSW London’s subsequent decade

Bryan says that the competition’s already laying its foundations for its long term through making an investment in early life skill and get right of entry to. “It’s very youth-oriented in a way. We have so many artists and performers looking at SXSW to be a platform where they can develop their careers and take off into global stardom. We’re tapping into that youthful energy and talent alongside big business.” The organizers have additionally been running with orgs similar to Idris Elba’s Creative Futures, Lewis Hamilton’s Mission 44, Alexander McQueen’s Sarabande Foundation and the Alan Turing Institute to provide various early life get right of entry to to the competition, along all the ones lanyarded advertising professionals.

The fest will proceed to push into spaces of the humanities through which London excels, however that are virgin floor for the broader SXSW emblem: type and visible artwork. It’ll additionally proceed with advertising at its very middle – this 12 months’s 5 key topics (‘advancement in AI,’ ‘the creator economy,’ ‘future thinking 2050,’ ‘frontier technologies’ and ‘what’s subsequent in advertising’) all worry advertising and its present favourite subjects.

Bryan says that SXSW Europe’s subsequent trip will completely go back to East London and the staff will spend the time between at times looking to cement bonds with native communities. “We want to double down on our commitment to London… We’ll be looking to be even more ambitious. We’ll look to reflect more local businesses and communities more deeply. If you walk around Austin, when you go to SXSW, it feels like it’s the center of the universe. It feels like everyone is in town to celebrate SXSW for those couple of weeks. If we can increase our engagement with local businesses, bars, restaurants and shops, you’ll start to feel that this entire area becomes the destination for the festival this week.

“You build equity over time. We’ll become more important to London, to residents, to communities the longer we’re here. That’s the idea: deepening investment so we become synonymous with East London.”

The view from the bottom

Any nice competition has its trustworthy acolytes: Burning Man’s ‘burners,’ Glastonbury’s legions of Scouse tune fanatics. SXSW Austin is in all probability the most important B2B tournament in the case of those devotees – folks like Jon Burkhart, advertising guide and speaker trainer, who has attended 16 of the Texas occasions. A Memphis local transplanted to London, he’s reverse-imported his conventional ‘Beernote’ fringe consultation from Austin to London this 12 months.

Does London’s first SXSW go the sniff test for a true-blue disciple like Burkhart? “This place has its own vibe from day one,” he says. “With ‘beautiful collisions,’ SXSW London has come up with the best theme certainly of my 16 years. I wish I’d come up with it.”

“I hope that people will come away thinking that conferences that have so many different elements so close together, combining bits of culture and technology and business, are the way of the future. I want other conferences to learn from this, because I feel the theme that we’re all exploring is: how do we survive as humans in a world of AI? I think if we focus on the humanity bit, we’re going to realize that the magic of SXSW is that it addresses all aspects of our humanity – the one that wants to make deals, create startups, watch films, turn your brain off, listen to your favorite comedian or even just chill out and watch a brand new film that everyone’s hyped about. There’s something magical about it. I say, where are we going next?”

Speaking of the perimeter, for a debut 12 months, due to the transportable energy of the SXSW emblem, a wealthy sideshow of unaffiliated occasions used to be already in attendance this 12 months, with some mentioning top costs for licensing and sponsoring legitimate venues. One company spent the week using a cell bar round Shoreditch; any other, Sparks, collaborated with broadcaster GenB TV to arrange a content material studio in a real Brick Lane nook store that drew enhance from the likes of the godfather of dirt Wiley and actor/DJ Idris Elba. Marketing boss for the company, Caroline Sparks, says she hopes that the development’s fringe will develop, too: “We want to create a space for community and belonging in Brick Lane, rather than ‘disrupting’ Brick Lane… Austin lives by its fringe – I love Austin SXSW, it’s an amazing festival and the best conversations happen at its fringe. I think we’re honoring that spirit by being here.”