SXSW arts and tech festival leaves Texas for a jaunt in east London
Barack Obama, Johnny Cash, Matthew McConaughey, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerburg have all taken a turn at addressing its crowds, but now the Texan culture and tech festival that likes to predict the future is to become a bona fide East Ender.
The European edition of South by Southwest has opened to applications from contributors and audiences around the world before its inaugural London event next summer.
It may not be near the desert, and there won’t be so many baseball caps on show, but the huge annual festival in Austin that has become famous for music, film and cutting-edge invention and design is now preparing to take over the streets of Shoreditch.
Speaking to the Observer before the full lineup is put together next spring, Katy Arnander, the director of programming, has revealed the conference that will be at the centre of the week-long festival in June will feature 420 sessions, while the wider events will spread across 29 venues, including galleries and nightclubs.
“It is already clear from early interest in attending that the streets of east London will be as buzzing as we’d hoped,” she said. The event, styled as a kind of “Olympics of the mind”, with fashion and music thrown into the mix, has come to London rather than elsewhere in Europe “because of its multicultural aspects”, Arnander says.
“It also will be a big draw for entrepreneurs and performers from further afield than Europe, because it is so much nearer for people to the Middle East and north Africa.”
Lovers of film, music and hi-tech, as well as creators and inventors, now have four days to vote on the contents of the conference programme. “The idea is to be democratic and let the audiences have some say, although obviously there will also be lots of curated content and performances.”
So far, the British organisers have received more than twice the predicted number of submissions, with 2,700 entries and counting. Each hopeful submission will be assessed by three curators to ensure everything is given a fair chance to impress.
The festival began in Austin in 1987 and has grown into an attraction that brings hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Texan city. It prides itself on reflecting current trends and providing a snapshot of what innovators are thinking, although it hit financial difficulties during the pandemic after the 2020 festival was cancelled at short notice.
After a two-year gap, Penske Media’s P-MRC Holdings invested in the brand. P-MRC is a joint US venture between Penske Media Corporation and MRC, whose holdings include the media outlets and trade journals Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, Variety and Vibe.
In 2022 a hybrid version of the festival returned. But controversy damaged the Austin festival this year, when 80 acts pulled out in protest against the organiser’s partnership with the American military.
This June South by Southwest discontinued its association with the US army and the defence contractor RTX Corporation.
“After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model,” said a statement on the festival’s website.
“As a result, the US army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.”
