London’s Debut SXSW Dates Announced for 2025
South by Southwest (SXSW) will launch its debut London edition in Shoreditch next summer, on June 2-7, 2025.
The event, known as a conglomeration of music, tech, film and television, education, and culture, has been held annually in Austin, Texas since its inauguration in 1987. Last year, it made its first move overseas with the launch of the Pan-Pacific edition in Sydney as a one-off event.
It is assumed that SXSW London will generate more than £75 million in economic benefits, with more than 20,000 visitors expected to attend the event. The organizers stated they intended to “put community at its heart,” with SXSW London involving initiatives for workforce development, including partnerships with independent and community-led venues throughout the festival’s Shoreditch campus.
SXSW London aims to offer a skills development program to create a long-lasting legacy and pathway for young people into the creative industries besides hosting the routine schedule of film and music.
SXSW London community will have a direct role in shaping conference activities and program. Artists, thought leaders and industry professionals will be encouraged to submit their ideas and work for consideration for the SXSW programming team via a platform to be launched in the autumn.
“A shorter date format relative to SXSW in Austin will allow SXSW London to run its conference, music, screen and arts programmes at the same time, ensuring accessibility to multiple programming formats and diverse networking opportunities for attendees from different industries,” Randel Bryan, managing director of SXSW London, said.
“Bringing SXSW to the streets of Shoreditch will allow us to create a festival like no other, one that unfolds across incredible indoor spaces whilst also showcasing creativity and artistic experiences in unique public spaces, allowing us to capture the energy and excitement of the summer.”
Adem Holness, SXSW London’s head of music told Billboard “the thing we can do uniquely is pull together reflections of the cutting-edge, grassroots music communities and how people can get involved in what is happening at the cutting edge and how they might be able to work with those different international music scenes to develop them and develop ideas with them.”
“That’s what I think SXSW London should be,” Holness said.
This focus is thus not just on music, film and technology, but the cultures these things emanate from, according to Holness.
Ahead of the announcement of SXSW London came the appointment of Holness as booker, along with Katy Arnander as director of programming, Alex Poots as a consulting creative advisor, and Elliot Willis as commercial director.
New hires also included former Cannes Lions marketing director Clare Morris as the event’s director of marketing and communications, former BFI programmer Anna Bogutskaya as head of screen, and curator of the David Bowie collection Beth Greenacre as visual arts advisor.
The production of the event belongs to Panarise, a live entertainment company owned by Panarae that was founded by Ali Munir. Aditionally, Munir is a director of SXSW’s majority owner Penske Media Corporation, which purchased a 50% stake in SXSW in April 2021. The corporation owns media outlets like Rolling Stone, Variety and Billboard.
