SXSW is mak­ing its way to London

Since its incep­tion way back in 1987, South by South­west has become an endur­ing mark­er on the Austin cul­tur­al cal­en­dar. Once a year (pend­ing a glob­al pan­dem­ic), this sprawl­ing fes­ti­val pitch­es up to offer atten­dees a care­ful­ly curat­ed selec­tion of film, music and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion, acknowl­edg­ing ear­ly on that these three pil­lars of cul­ture often work hand in glove with one another.

For those UK read­ers who maybe don’t have the funds to fly out there and see what all the fuss is about, you’ll be glad to hear that a new Lon­don-based iter­a­tion of the fes­ti­val is set to kick off in 2025, hoist­ing the spir­it of inno­va­tion and knowl­edge-shar­ing across the pond for a new, poten­tial­ly more eclec­tic audi­ence to enjoy.

Lon­don isn’t the first city out­side of Austin to have a taste of SXSW, as there has already been a suc­cess­ful Syd­ney-based off­shoot from Octo­ber of 2023, hence the deci­sion to expand fur­ther. The plan is that the fes­ti­val will occu­py spaces in London’s Shored­itch and become the locus for dis­cus­sions on visu­al cul­ture in all its many weird and won­der­ful forms, with spe­cial focus on gam­ing, cin­e­ma and music showcases.

The US-cen­tric aspect of the Austin leg of the fes­ti­val will shift across to cre­ate a more Euro­pean flavour, sug­gest­ing that the fes­ti­val isn’t just about apply­ing the same for­mu­la to dif­fer­ent locales across the globe. The fact that they have already announced that pro­gram­mer, author and reg­u­lar LWLies’ con­trib­u­tor Anna Bogut­skaya has been giv­en the role of Head of Screen, makes us excit­ed for this new cel­e­bra­tion of creativity.

SXSW Lon­don kicks off in June of 2025 sxswlon​don​.com.