SXSW is now international: it will return to London this June, after a successful inaugural appearance in 2025.
I spoke with Clare Hill, director of marketing & communications for SXSW London, during her visit to Austin this month. I asked her first how it differs from the Austin event.
“The main difference is we’re trying to view ourselves as the European hub for South by. So obviously our talent in terms of music, screen and also conference is all very focused on European, with the heavy influence from the UK. But we’re just trying to be the European hub.
“We’re also slightly smaller in terms of size. We take over Shoreditch at 16 venues. But they’re all quite close, which is really nice because it means you can explore a bit more and you don’t have to have as much of a kind of gap in between your sessions to make it from one venue to the next.
“Our music is a little bit different just because the genres of music that we focus on in England are slightly different. Less country, more like, you know, rap and afro beats.”
Shoreditch is in East London, 15 to 20 minutes away from the West End theatre district. The closest activation is a two-minute walk from Liverpool Street Station, which is one of the biggest stations in London. Shoreditch is known as being one of the hotspots for innovation.
“A lot of really big companies started as start-ups there. So, it seemed like the perfect place to host South by because that’s obviously what we want to encourage: innovation and creativity and that kind of convergence of tech and music and screen.”
“Our main venues are actually standalone venues. We do some activations in hotels, but most of the venues are kind of historic buildings in Shoreditch. One of the buildings that we use is the Town Hall – it’s a really beautiful building. We also have Christ Church Spitalfields, which is a lovely church in the middle of Spitalfields.
“Our venues are slightly smaller than Austin, which means our capacity for individual keynotes is a bit smaller. But we really like that because it means it’s a bit more intimate, you get close to the speakers, there’s more of a chance to engage in Q&A. But yeah, we try to have kind of smaller, more historic buildings just to really showcase the vibe and the history of Shoreditch.
“Last year was our first festival, and we had just over 25,000 attendees across the six days. King Charles himself attended.” (see lead photo)
“Across all of those six days we have music acts, we have screenings, we have our conference and then we also have a visual arts programme as well, which is slightly different. But in terms of the format and everything it is pretty similar to Austin.
The concept of tracks on various topics has been retained. “So some of the track themes are slightly different to Austin, just because we base them on what the interests are of the European market. So for example, we have a whole track on government and policy, because we know that a lot of the companies in Europe are really interested in what’s changing, especially with AI, and how that impacts their government and policy going forward.
“There are also a few more European specifics, but it’s quite international. We had 85 different countries attend last year.”
“All the talks are in English but 80% of our films are in foreign language, just because that’s a really big part of what we do. We do have some film awards too.”
“It’s a really exciting opportunity to come over, especially if you normally go to Austin. Just to have a bit of a different experience, engage in different types of music, different companies.”
SXSW London is on from the 1st until the 6th of June, 2026.
www.sxswlondon.com