Tuesdata: The verdict on SXSW Sydney

BY Tim Burrowes

October 23, 2023 9:02

Welcome to Tuesdata, our weekly analysis for Unmade’s paying members.

Below, we asked attendees of South By Southwest about the highlights and hiccups of the event’s first outing in Sydney.

Further down, a rocky day on the Unmade Index.

And below the paywall you’ll find the coupon code for next month’s end-of-year review Compass, taking place in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Unmade’s paying members are entitled to a complimentary ticket. Upgrade today.

How did SXSW Sydney really go? Here’s what the attendees had to say

Attendees had strong thoughts on the much-anticipated conference

Seja Al Zaidi writes:

The inaugural South by Southwest Sydney has finally wrapped up.

The music, film and tech fest came to Sydney for the first time last week. It was the first time SXSW has run outside of Texas, and the NSW government attracted the event by offering a reported $12m in funding.

Centred on Sydney’s Darling Harbour and the ICC conference centre, the gathering attracted hundreds, perhaps thousands of attendees.

Throughout the week, we asked ticket holders for their verdicts.

For those who had been to the Austin counterpart, some complained it felt more ‘corporate’ or ‘conference-y’. Others suggested that organisational elements for both attendees and speakers was flawed. Despite that, many attendees said they found inspiration from a number of the sessions they attended.

One issue raised numerous times was the distance between stages. SXSW sessions were spread out between the ICC, Tumbalong Park, Powerhouse Museum and University of Technology Sydney. The majority of conference sessions were at the ICC, but many were also at UTS, which happens to be an 18 minute walk away.

Venues were so broadly dispersed, shuttle buses were required to move attendees around

Volunteers readily offering help with directions and sessions were peppered throughout the ICC. Many attendees mentioned missing sessions they wanted to see and experiencing major confusion navigating the program on the SXSW Sydney website. Those using the app were met with more success, although not all sessions were in it.

Primeville offered sticker sheets and Audible credits

Several tech platforms had a major presence through consumer activations. Amazon took over Fratelli Fresh and turned it into “Streamville”, offering free snacks and the chance to win Amazon products.

Uber offered free cocktails. Snapchat demo’d mixed reality experiences.

As well as running its Upfronts in the ICC, Seven ran a small stage built inside Tumbalong Park. WPP House was set up in what is usually a corridor of the Powerhouse Museum. Further afield, Spotify dimainated the music stream, turning The Lansdowne Hotel into Spotify House.

Here’s what the delegates had to say:

On the logistics:

Brock Valesini, content creator and social media manager at ALLKND Youth Mental Health

“I have noticed that with a lot of things that I wanted to go to, it’s been at capacity. I just wish that there’d be a bit more preparedness for the demand for everything.

“Then one thing’s in the ICC, the next thing’s at UTS. In terms of getting places and getting into things, that could probably be improved. When it comes to having to walk to get to UTS or Powerhouse Museum or wherever, it’s exhausting. My legs are killing me!”

Carol Pedersen, senior consultant at Saxton Speakers Bureau

“I have heard when I’ve been standing in the queues, people talking about the differences between Sydney and Austin. I think the main thing that I’ve heard is that it’s a little bit one dimensional here, whereas over in Austin it’s more diverse. More creative and more multicultural.

“I think we expected a TEDx experience where there would be food and water. And coffee. That poor guy on the ground floor was making coffee for 3,000 people.”

Farah Parkinson, general manager of brand and talent at Saxton Speakers Bureau

“And by the end of the day, you’re exhausted because you haven’t eaten or drunk anything all day.

“Our organisation purchased Platinum tickets, but it didn’t really mean anything. The green badges are a bit less dear than these ones and that would have got us into all the speakers, but even standing in line for a couple of things, people were like ‘do we not get priority entry with these?’

Pete Majarich, head of design at We Are Social

“It seems to me like just like a sensory overload of different panels. You run into people that you work with and I think it’s a good way to just trigger ideas and get the inspiration going.”

Jess Lay, general manager of Saxton Engage

“We were leaving some sessions to get to others. And you shouldn’t have to do that.

Someone referenced the programming to be like a Chinese menu – too many options! We actually feel like we’re not getting our money’s worth cause we are missing out on a lot, because you can’t a get to them or, you’re sacrificing one thing for another.

And the food thing – I’m passing out during the day! I noticed that on day one, they had no coffee carts. The poor guy downstairs. Eventually, they started to put coffee around the place, which was better. But no food, no snacks, nothing.”

On the quality of speakers:

Marie Ferrett, general manager of brand and reputation at NRMA

“I think you definitely get snippets of impactful takeaways out of each session. I’ve been trying as a brand and marketing expert to avoid the brand and marketing sessions and just go completely different. Chance the Rapper, just saw him. Amazing. Like, just different thinking. He’s from a completely different world and you can still take something away from that. So I think it’s the diversity that you get here that you don’t get at a normal conference. Normally you go to a conference that is your specialty. Whereas this is great because you get that broad diversity and you can just immerse yourself in things that you normally wouldn’t have immersed yourself into.”

Farah Parkinson, general manager of brand and talent at Saxton Speakers Bureau

“One of my observations is that most of the sessions that made it through the session selection are very clearly brand related. It feels like most of them are sponsored in some way. For example, I saw an amazing session at Powerhouse on re-imagining masculinity. It was a fantastic session with some great young speakers, but it was put together by Movember. Not that it was bad, but it was put together by Movember. I think the AI fluency session was a University of Sydney collaboration. I went to a Spotify one today, the Adam Goodes and Nina Las Vegas one was with Universal Music and it was quite clear, the ties in there.”

Jess Lay, general manager of Saxton Engage

“I think everyone was talking about AI and it was packed; every single session was AI driven. I think they tried to vary it with branded opportunities. They were saying, how does AI work with sports management? And I think we went to one at CommBank about how tech is being infiltrated into the Matilda’s team.”

Brock Valesini, content creator and social media manager at ALLKND Youth Mental Health

“One thing I would love to see next year is a lot more focus on a content creator stream or a content creator track. I know there’s a lot of digital marketing stuff and advertising stuff, which is great. But I think content creators are everywhere in Sydney, it’s the industry that’s taking over Sydney. I think that if we play into that more, there’s going to be a lot more people in attendance next year just for that specifically.”

On the atmosphere:

Ben Bickford, founder of Bionic Corporation

“Having been to Austin for SXSW twice, I love the accessibility of people that are thought leaders in their own space. And it’s not until you get together and you start sharing ideas over a drink at the bar, or in between sessions when you’re lining up and you’re standing there. Those are the moments where the magic happens.

“I have conversations here, literally a three hour conversation at the lobby of a hotel last night, which was very similar to my experiences when I was in Austin, Texas. The magic was happening in very informal ways, getting to know people, and talking about the ways in which you could collaborate on reinventing and transforming traditional industries and traditional markets and deliver very rich, stunningly new and engaging experiences in novel ways. And that’s what’s happening and that’s why I’m here.”

Marie Ferrett, general manager of brand and reputation at NRMA

“The Austin SXSW is amazing. It’s amazing because of the vibe and culture that it generates. And I think maybe the gap here is one of ‘less about the conferences’, more about the energy and the food and the content and the music and the uncovering new artists and embracing the culture of the town. I think that’s probably missing a little bit. You’re not in the streets, whereas in Austin you’re in the streets and you’re in the town. Whereas here you’re in a big conference centre, so it’s probably hard to get people out into Tumbalong Park or out over to UTS, so that probably doesn’t help.”

Farah Parkinson, general manager of brand and talent at Saxton Speakers Bureau

“I’d be really interested to see how the precinct develops, especially around the Tumbalong Park area. Even just down here, there’s like a couple of random standalone activations that are a bit lonely. There weren’t a whole lot of networking opportunities during the day.

If you’re here to hear new ideas and get really excited about the future of your business, then maybe it would be worth it. It’s tough though, because these are expensive tickets. I can’t imagine that anyone here are just general population who want to come and be inspired by some new ideas which maybe isn’t so much in the spirit of things.”

KJ Oh, journalist at Yonhap News Agency

“The biggest difference to Austin is that over there, everyone in the city actually participates in the festival, but Sydney is a very big city. There is more emphasis on tech here. So there are more people from enterprises or from the media.”

On takeaways:

Pete Majarich, head of design at We Are Social

“In Charlie Brooker’s session, he did note that we can’t stay blind to the hazards of technology. A lot of people think he’s a Luddite just because he’s behind the ‘phone goes bad’ show, as he called it. He had an interesting idea that tech companies should employ worried people, paranoid people who look at the worst case scenario of where products might go rather than people with rose tinted glasses. Just looking at the worst case scenario, playing devil’s advocate, I think can help brands as well.”

David Downs, CEO of New Zealand Story Group

“The session on robotics was excellent. It was so interesting and so fresh.”

Kim Andrew, chief commercial officer at Infocus Wealth Management

“Understanding what they call fluency around AI has been a real revelation to us that it’s not a binary like you’re either in or out, it’s either this or that. I think that’s been good for us to understand how to apply that to our tech when we go back to how our systems and our people work.”

Farah Parkinson, general manager of brand and talent at Saxton Speakers Bureau

“The one that we saw today on extinct animals and de-extinction, that was really fascinating – especially hearing about the work they’re doing to de-extinct the Tasmanian tiger and the mammoth. It’s got nothing to do with my life or anything like that.

Ben Blackburn, head of product at Sixt Australia

“The session takeaways are going to make me think about how I plan and how I need to think about the purposes of innovation technology for what I’m going to use tomorrow. So things around like mobility and the interaction there. Also, how quantum computing can answer questions, or how megatrends will influence tailwinds or headwinds in my industry.”

Jess Lay, general manager of Saxton Engage

“Because I work in the brand and partnerships division, I also loved Adam Goodes and Nina Las Vegas. The brand and the media stuff for me has been quite good.“

Brock Valesini, content creator and social media manager at ALLKND Youth Mental Health

“Most of the notes I’ve taken away that have been most valuable have come from a lot of the screen sessions. Even though content creation is leaning into tech, content creators are still making screen content.

“So, a lot of the screen things, especially because they’re so Australia-based and relevant to us, I feel like that’s where I’ve gotten the most value out of things, compared to a lot of the content creation sessions.

“One session I loved was ‘The Ingredients to Making an Australian Hit Series’, with the vice president of Disney, head of Netflix and head of Prime Video. That one was really valuable.”

SXSW Sydney did not respond to our invitations to comment for this article.

Stocks slide, but radio survives on the Unmade Index

The Unmade Index tipped a further 1.68% yesterday, falling back down to only just above the 600-point trapdoor.

All the larger stocks fell in share price. Ooh Media had the biggest decline – 3.52% – while IVE Group dropped 1.94%, Nine 1.76% and Seven West Media 1.69%. Domain fell 1.32%, and ARN Media 1.20%.

Southern Cross Austereo on the other hand continued to climb in share price. It rose 2.79% on the day that the AFR reported that it was courting a range of investors to counter ARN Media’s takeover bid.

Enero Group rose 2.91%.