SXSW, a conference encompassing music, art, business and innovation, kicked off in London today for the first time in its 38-year history.
Attendees will witness a historic ‘love letter to London’, SXSW CEO Max Alexander tells Metro, one of the conference’s media partners, with more than 25 Shoreditch venues hosting daily talks, panels, performances and more.
What began as a music industry conference in Austin, Texas, evolved into a broader cultural festival which has served as a platform for some of today’s most successful artists and businesses.
‘It makes no sense when you hear about it. But when you arrive, it suddenly makes sense because what you’re being invited to do is to get out of your comfort zone. To challenge yourself by experiencing speakers or music, or cultural events that are not in your domain,’ Max explains.
‘This is at the heart of what Austin and London do as cities, which is to invite people to seek ideas. I have a profound love affair with London.
‘I think it’s the greatest city on earth. SXSW’s ambition is to become part of the cultural fabric of London.’
‘A love letter to London’
‘We want SXSW to be a love letter to London, while being incredibly respectful of what London already is: a profound nexus of culture, business, creativity, ideas, technology, finance, and philosophy,’ Max adds.
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Choosing Shoreditch as the core of London’s first SXSW conference was intentional. The London neighbourhood is like if the world itself were ‘fractalised’, Max says.
‘Within Shoreditch alone, you have a mixed and diverse little city within itself. When planning this event, we looked at cities across Europe, but in the end, the siren song of London was impossible to resist. We ought to be here.’
This year’s conference is addressing six themes: Humanity, Machines & The Future of AI; Our Future Health; New Tech Frontiers; Tech, Government and The Future of Society, Navigating Business in a Changing World; Innovation Meets Imagination: The Future of Creativity.
Hundreds of businesses and music artists will be platformed at this year’s event – all intentionally chosen, so SXSW can be a place where attendees can come and see them to ‘dream’ about what they might be, Max said.
‘We want to help amplify for London and for Britain and indeed for, for Europe and showcase technologies, business models, art forms, music creatives, and give people a really explicit platform for presentation and discovery and investigation,’ he said.
‘There is simply put, nothing else like it in Europe. We want to encourage people to see and value each other’s disciplines.
‘This is a space we invite people to come to and to be inspired in and to dream in. That’s valuable in and of itself, and I hope will be incredibly valuable in the medium and long term to the city and to the United Kingdom.’
But the thing Max hopes attendees will take from this year’s conference is to learn something new, and make a new friend in East London.
He said: ‘Learning something new is just such a fabulous thing, because when we stop learning, we die.’
SXSW begins today and will run until Friday, June 7.
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