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Austin’s South by Southwest convention and competition is heading to the UK, marking the primary time that the world-famous occasion has been held in Europe.
On account of happen over one week in June 2025, the inaugural version of SXSW London will observe the identical format as its Texas-based forerunner and have “inspiring and difficult” keynote talks, music performances and showcase main improvements in tech, gaming and movie, organizers mentioned in in the present day’s announcement. Names and particulars of who might be showing might be introduced within the coming months.
Held yearly within the metropolis of Austin since 1987, SXSW has grown to grow to be one of many greatest occasions within the world music calendar, attracting a whole lot of 1000’s of musicians, creatives, filmmakers, media firms and music business executives to the state of Texas each March.
Amy Winehouse, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran, Stormzy and Moist Leg are just some of the music artists who performed the competition early of their careers.
Earlier visitor audio system have included Dave Grohl, U.S. president Barack Obama, Steven Spielberg, Michelle Yeoh and Fb founder Mark Zuckerberg, whereas Twitter, Foursquare and Airbnb are among the many tech start-ups that SXSW famously helped launch.
Subsequent 12 months’s debut of SXSW London continues the occasion’s world rollout, which started in 2023 with the launch of an Asia Pacific version in Sydney, Australia.
The second installment of SXSW Sydney takes place Oct. 14-20 with the primary U.S. SXSW competition and convention scheduled for Mar. 7-17 in Austin. The addition of a brand new London version makes the occasion collection “an indispensable three-stop tour for the worldwide inventive group,” mentioned organizers in a press launch.
Though 2025 would be the first time {that a} SXSW-branded occasion has taken place in Europe, the group did staff up with Mercedes-Benz to host an annual convention, known as the me Conference, between 2017 and 2019 in Germany and Sweden, focused on the tech, design and inventive communities.
“We couldn’t be extra excited to carry the SXSW expertise to London,” mentioned SXSW co-president and chief model officer Jann Baskett in an announcement. She known as subsequent 12 months’s deliberate occasion “an unbelievable new alternative to spotlight the weather that make SXSW distinctive in one of the vital vibrant cities in Europe.”
Randel Bryan, managing director of SXSW London, mentioned the competition “will construct on Austin’s unbelievable legacy” by offering “a platform for the following era of inventive expertise.”
Whereas detailed plans for SXSW London are but to be introduced, organizers mentioned the occasion might be held in dozens of venues, artwork galleries and golf equipment within the East London district of Shoreditch and could have its personal “distinctive persona,” reflecting the U.Ok. capital metropolis’s “internationally famend cultural life and creativity.”
Alongside keynote talks and music showcases, the convention will embody “boundary pushing” visible arts, design and trend programming, with exhibitions and interactive and immersive experiences going down in public areas throughout East London. The town’s proximity to different main inventive and tech facilities in Europe may also form programming as organizers look to draw inventive expertise from throughout the continent.
Commenting on the announcement, London mayor Sadiq Khan known as the plans “a historic alternative” for the town “to as soon as once more carry the world’s most enjoyable expertise collectively.”
In April 2021, it was introduced that SXSW had signed a “lifeline” deal with P-MRC, a three way partnership between Penske Media Company and MRC, making P-MRC a stakeholder and long-term companion with the Austin competition. P-MRC is the guardian firm of Billboard.
