Reflections on SXSW Sydney 23/24

In 2002, I was besotted with music, guitar rock was the epicentre of musical genres, and I was living my best life packing CD's into slips as an intern at EMI. Through the course of this internship, there was one festival that had the eyes and ears of everyone in the music industry. SXSW, coming out of Austin Texas. 2002 was peak festival era, and SXSW seemed to be the heartbeat of these industries - a music, film, creative and tech festival. In 2002, the musical lineup included a plethora of household names such as The Darkness, Polyphonic Spree, Neil Finn, Elbow, Starsailor, Norah Jones, and a little known band getting rave reviews called Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Since that time, I've kept a close eye on how the festival itself has grown and when it was announced that SXSW would be visiting Australian shores, I was immensely excited and wet with anticipation.

For everything that SXSW Sydney provided, year 1 can be considered a rousing success. Tweaks will be made sure, it's year 1, and we should be grateful that SXSW will be visiting these shores another 4 times as part of their 5-year residency in Sydney. On Thursday, Brent Smart was on a fantastic panel of speakers and the team at SXSW should heed his words on 'Building Iconic Brands': "In Year 1 [of your brand campaign], everyone thinks it's shit. In Year 3, everyone thinks it's brilliant."

If they hold the course, this festival and its influence will grow, and become a mainstay of annual calendars for the next few years.

Festival. Not a Conference.

People I've spoken to have had differing opinions on the event, some have lambasted it as "bumpy", others have said that it's "got too much going on". It took a little bit of historical context, and about 4 hours attending on my first day, to realise what SXSW Sydney is; and what it isn't.

Once I grasped this, and lay into it, the experience started to fold around me like a blanket, and I immersed myself.

SXSWSydney is a festival, a 'multi-discipline festival' too, stretching far and wide across numerous industries. What it is not; is a conference.

Once I got my head around that, it changed the game for me, and adjusted my expectations of the event.

In most industries, conferences will take place for one industry, in one location, for a set time.

SXSW is a music festival. A film festival. A tech and innovation festival. A gaming festival. All at the same time. All at very close locations. All week long.

Content

There is so much going on over the week, it's all happening simultaneously and it's all happening in different places. The frustration at the start of the week, is trying to figure out how you're going to fit it all in. Clue: You're not.

Neither are you going to get to 'back-to-back' sessions. Due to the space between locations - sometimes kilometres apart - you need to account for time to get from one session to the next, and for popular sessions, you best line up for 45 - 60 minutes before the session starts.? Smart folk saw the session before and stayed in their seats, meaning that once the start of the queue finally got in, the space was already ? full.

Find your 3x sessions in a day to hit, and hit them. If you get more than that, it's a bonus.

The content of the week is so broad spanning numerous industries, part of the enjoyment of the week is a process of discovery.? Sure, there are some obvious click bait headline sessions, and some that are just a sales pitch from whoever is presenting - but when you get a good session, it stays with you all week.

People

One of the key takeaways and tips came from Amy Webb who told us as part of her keynote on Monday, that the highlight of our SXSW Sydney experience would be the connections we make, and the community we form.

Over the course of the week, she forewarned us that there would be a lot of waiting. Waiting in queues for sessions. Waiting as we sat inside for the session to start. Waiting to exit the session.

Whenever we were waiting - her tip was to put the phone away, stop screen timing, and talk to the people next to you.

I didn't expect this to be the biggest take away for me over the week - but it indelibly was the highlight.??

By operating all week in a “phones out, tongues out” mantra, I would chat to people in a queue for a session, I'd sit next to them in a cinema as they try to nick off with my popcorn (Paulina Hobbs & Emma DiGiacomo), or arrange a catch up with 40-odd people at a Meetup. Bumping into everyone during the festival again and again made me realise, how small a festival it is (for the moment), but how influential it is, that all now share a common SXSW experience.

Logistics

Kudos to the organising committee including Colin Daniels, Fenella Kernebone and Holly Doust-Robinson plus the many others no doubt involved.

It is an immense undertaking trying to bring SXSW to a new city, and they should be applauded.

The number of conference sessions, panellists, venues, and partners involved will have made this an arduous task and boggles the mind.

If there's one word or topic that was on everyone's mind through the festival, it was AI. However, for all the talk of AI at the conference, future festivals need to implement some of the technology that is surely on offer to help improve the experience.

The app was clunky at times, the filter for events hard to navigate, and the constant scrolling past expo partners and other offerings made it a nightmare to try and do any kind of planning if you are that way inclined.

Next Year

It’s no longer 2002, guitar rock isn’t the epicentre of music festivals anymore, and we all have to grow up. ? SXSW Sydney will grow from a successful Year 1, and next year I have no doubt will unearth some panelists, films, music and artists that we’ll talk about 20 years from now.