Even though SXSW in Austin, Texas is done and dusted for the year, the festival isn’t done for 2023 just yet. SXSW Sydney will be bringing the conference to the Southern Hemisphere for the first time, with all the action kicking off on October 15.
Mediaweek spoke to Fenella Kernebone, Head of Programming (Conference) for SXSW Sydney, at the SXSW conference in Austin about how her time in Texas has inspired her.
Reflecting on her time at the Austin conference, Kernebone says that the experience has been “wonderful, but exhausting” – something she hopes to bring to the Australian iteration.
“How do you recreate wonderful and exhausting, but also pointed, great moments for audience members, particularly for the conference? That’s something I’ve been getting my head around whilst wandering around Austin.”
When asked whether the experience in Austin has changed her perception of what South by Southwest Texas is – and what South by Southwest Sydney should be – Kernebone says that if anything, it’s solidified her vision.
“I don’t think it’s changed what I think Sydney should be, I think it’s just cemented the bits that we have to have. It’s not going to be as big, and that to me is also a great benefit for our first year – Austin has had 36 years to work this out, and the number of things that are happening all across the city and across the space are extraordinary.
“Sydney will have the DNA of Austin running through its veins, we don’t need to play around with that too much. But we can make tweaks to it to suit our spaces, to suit our venues, to suit the audience numbers that we have. I think the inspiration of being here in Austin has been incredibly beneficial.”
SXSW Austin has 25 tracks, each with sessions diving deeper into each topic.
SXSW Sydney is set to cover the same topics across 18 tracks – for example, by folding ‘Cannabis’ and ‘Psychedelics’ into the ‘Health and Well Being’ track – and will include topics such as music, gaming, screen, and The Future You.
The jewel in the crown of SXSW Sydney’s lineup is keynote speaker Amy Webb: futurist, CEO of the Future Today Institute, and professor at NYU Stern School of Business.
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Amy Webb
“She was one of the first people that Colin [Daniels, Managing Director – SXSW Sydney] reached out to. I’ve long heard of Amy Webb just from my admiring from afar, and then watched her talks at South By online, because they’re one of the ones that you can watch on the YouTube channel. She’s such a legend, and there’s something about how she presents her legacy with South By.
“For us in Sydney to be able to say that she’s coming later this year and she’s going to be our first keynote is great, because everything that she represents is what South by – whether it’s in Sydney or Austin – is about. Her research is strong, the data is clear, and the audience is going to really enjoy seeing her speak.”
Despite making regular appearances at SXSW Austin, Kernebone says that bringing her Down Under as the Keynote speaker is a major benefit for SXSW Sydney.
“She’s been a featured speaker for the last few years, but not a keynote. That’s one point of difference, that opportunity to elevate the quality of what she has to talk about to keynote in our first year is really exciting. That to me, it says what South By Sydney should be about.”
Having been in contact with the SXSW Austin team for a long time now, Kernebone says that the Sydney team were lucky enough to take a peek behind the action whilst on the ground in Austin, Texas.
“We’ve had a number of meetings, I’m often in email contact with Hugh Forrest [Co-President & Chief Programming Officer]. He’s absolutely wonderful.
“Obviously, they are so busy this week, it’s next level. But one thing they have very generously allowed us to do is help out. We’ve been shadowing them, it’s been great. I spent some time with Katie Perera’s [Senior Manager, Conference Programming] wandering around the backstages of the Convention Centre a couple of days ago and just thought, you’ve got a big task, but we can do this.”
Heading Down Under
October is rapidly approaching. When it comes to what the SXSW Sydney would look like, Kernebone says that the conference is really taking shape
“We know how many sessions we can have, I know where we can potentially play in some other spaces as well. We’ve got track sponsors coming in and the topics are starting to really take shape. Session Select closed on the 28th of Feb, and we had an enormous number of entries – double what I expected, I was flabbergasted.”
Bringing SXSW to Australia for the first time means representing the area through the iconic festival.
“I’ve got my own guidelines which I worked through with the group leads last year, and each of the pillars have separate guidelines in terms of what they want to achieve,” says Kernebone. “For speakers, my goal for the first year – and it would be great if it exceeds this – is that at least 20% of the sessions or speakers are international, and at least 10% of those are from across the Asia Pacific. So from China, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, etc.
“We are in Australia, we are in the Asia Pacific region, this is what this event has to be. The programming will grow – this is the first year and for me, it’s 10% from APEC to start with. Hopefully, we exceed that.”
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What has been announced at SXSW Sydney so far
First Speakers Announced:
- Amy Webb – Founder of Future Today Institute
- Ben Lamm & Professor Andrew Pask – Colossal and University of Melbourne
- Guy Kawasaki – Canva
- Jack Reis – Baidam Solutions
- Larissa Behrendt – Distinguished Professor at the University of Technology Sydney
- Manal al-Sharif – Women’s Rights Activist & Ethical Technologists Society
- Michael Biercuk – CEO and Founder of Q-CTRL
- Per Sundin – CEO of Pophouse Entertainment
- Que Minh Luu – Director of Content (ANZ) at Netflix
- Robyn Denholm – Chair of Tesla and Blackbird Ventures
- Rohit Bhargava – Co-founder & COO of One Future Football
- Sean Miyashiro – Founder and CEO of 88rising
- Dr Sheila Nguyen – FIFA Women’s World Cup
- Sung Eun YOUN – Film Critic
- Tom Verrilli – Chief Product Officer at Twitch
- Yiying Lu – Adobe Global Creative Ambassador
- Yoomin YANG – Co-Founder and CEO of WOW POINT
Amy Webb as SXSW Austin, 2023
SXSW Sydney 2023 announces the appointment of agency partners
SXSW Sydney 2023 has announced the appointment of four agency partners to support the next chapter of the SXSW brand in Sydney – Australia’s capital of arts, culture, and tech innovation, with a thriving 24-hour economy.
Collaborating with the festival since the initial Australian announcement last year, Present Company take the lead on brand, creative and social, while Thinking Loud are managing the PR across culture, music, and gaming media.
Organic Pacific are working in conjunction with Thinking Loud, and are responsible for Australian screen, business, and technology media. Globally, Organic international teams will manage domestic US and European communications, with Red Havas Singapore acting as the PR lead for the Asian markets.
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SXSW Texas Key takeaways from Mediaweek Tour
South by South West in Austin Texas is one of the biggest events on the global media calendar, and there is even more interest down under in Australia this year due to the upcoming SXSW Sydney.
Due to this, the Mediaweek SXSW tour took several media executives from across the country to the week-long event and then caught up with several members of the tour on what their key takeaways were, which you can read below:
SXSW Tour: Seven’s Kurt Burnette’s key takeaways
SXSW Tour: Mindshare’s Kerry Field’s key takeaways
SXSW Tour: Seven’s Georgie Nichols’ key takeaways
SXSW Tour: Strat’s Justen Duggan and Josh Raskin Gottlieb’s key takeaways
SXSW Tour: Seven’s Katie Finney’s key takeaways
Mediaweek’s touring party checks in on Day 1 of SXSW