SXSW in Texas is billed as the world’s most influential – and biggest – innovation and creativity expo, drawing the leading lights from the worlds of technology, film, music, and increasingly gaming.

This year, for the first time, SXSW took the caravan on the road and headed to the other end of the world – Sydney – to test how well the idea translates in a different geography. Having long been SXSW fans, we bought Platinum (all access) tickets for partners and friends of the firm, and schlepped around for a few days.  

While it lacked the kind of star power that has become synonymous with SXSW, there was still a reasonable selection of ideas on offer. And for an event synonymous with innovation, it's little wonder that generative AI, the disruptor du jour, took centre stage in the tech and entertainment streams.

 

Among the Highlights

Futurist Amy Webb suggested the dystopian future promised by generative AI looks less like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator and more like death by 5000 papercuts. 

For consumers, she said the risk is that those frictionless experiences we all crave are just the machine directing the customer, either obviously, or surreptitiously to make the same couple of choices over and over again. Welcome to a world without personal agency, where your experiences are equivalent to being force-fed smooth jazz on endless repeat – ”it’s inoffensive but also unsatisfying at a deeper level”.

Webb also warned that aggressive data scraping could lead to the death of search. “We talk all the time about bias, which is a real thing, but what we don't talk about is homogeneity.”

Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker called out the dangers of deep fakes. The ground-breaking Black Mirror series is a television anthology typically set in new future dystopias, where technology often plays a leading role in dehumanising very human experiences (sound familiar?)

Speaking on a different panel, Brooker was asked what scares him most: “Weaponised fake footage being used as misinformation, because we’re already in a period where we’re dividing ourselves into groups, where people are choosing their own version of facts.”

“How the hell are we going to solve the problems we face when we can’t agree on what reality is, on what the truth is? The fact that we could be under attack even more is terrifying. So, that scares me.”

Music festival Coachella Co-founder Paul Tollett recalled how the first Coachella event flopped (although he considers it a beautiful failure). Instead, it was YouTube that created its success and helped it go global. He said he was originally opposed to the idea of streaming the event, but now he says the decade-long livestreaming partnership with YouTube globalised the now 20-year-old music event which this year attracted over 500,000 attendees over two weekends.

The streaming scale is extraordinary – in 2018 for instance, Beyoncé's headline act set at Coachella's opening weekend drew a record 41 million live viewers from 232 countries.

Livestreaming also gave Coachella the ability to tap into regional musical opportunities. According to Tollett, “All of a sudden you have the biggest artist in that region. And what it does is it just gets everyone watching from that area. Coachella wasn’t really that well known in Asia [prior to Blackpink appearing]. Now, everyone in Indonesia follows it, not just Korea. It became a thing where no matter what country you’re in, you could watch it like it’s your show.”

Web 3 rated a mention with media outfit Wunderman Thompson’s global head of emerging channels, Justin Peyton, telling his audience that Web 3 is taking us in a direction where consumers finally take control of their own data and consent to share – or not share – with brands.

Actress Nicole Kidman brought the extra sprinkle of celebrity to the event, but in fact, her comments were most directly related to her role off camera. She and partner Per Saari formed the production company Blossom Films whose first release called The Last Anniversary launches later this month. However, Kidman was somewhat hamstrung by Actors Guild rules due to the then-ongoing strike in the US. 

For the business audience, tech certainly stood out. Many of the tech-themed sessions we attended were standing-room only or completely sold out, in contrast to the spartan crowds in the conference precinct.

Accenture Song CEO David Droga (often regarded as Australia’s greatest advertising industry export) predicted that generative AI would upend the advertising industry by destroying mediocre creative. “I don't think all creativity needs to survive. I think that the blanket statement of what you can replace isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's stuff that we throw into the bucket of creativity that is not creative. It’s quite formulaic and generic.”

He also took a swipe at the quality of output from the movie industry saying, Gen AI could write the next Fast and Furious movie, and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

“Creativity thrives under duress and change, and I think that this is a necessary thing for us to find the next version of what creativity can add. Gen AI is basically a problem solver – I just worry about when it decides that we're the problem.”

Meta whistleblower Francis Haugen added a bit of necessary spark to the first day saying digital platforms actively resist transparency around disinformation, misinformation, hate speech, and even child sexual exploitation. It was a timely intervention given that Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, who was also on the panel, had that morning hit X with an $A600k infringement notice that could swell to millions depending on how Elon Musk’s personal version of Twitter responds.

Slack Co-founder Cal Henderson, who sold his business to Salesforce in 2021 for $27bn, tackled the issue of changes in the way we work, telling the audience the five-day work week is “pretty much over.” He attributed the longevity of the trend to the sheer scale and length of the pandemic saying we might have all snapped back to normal if it had been shorter. “But the longer it went on, and organisations continued to be productive, it proved to organisations but probably more importantly to employees is that this is a possible way to work and companies can still be successful.”

Infotech gave way temporarily to neurotech when Syncron Co-founder and Professor at Melbourne University’s Vascular Bionics Lab, Nicholas Opie, took to the stage. His company’s technology connects human thought with devices such as computers or mobile phones. Opie’s focus is on mitigating the suffering of patients with motor neuron disease, whereas Elon Musk’s Neuralink for instance sees much wider applications. Opie seemed a little more anchored in the world of real things compared to the famous tech entrepreneur. “We've been working on this for 12 years and we still haven't got a product out to market. Someone else coming along and doing it for other commercial purposes is a long way off. I do think that a lot of the really good applications for this are going to be medical first.”

There were also opportunities for startups through a SXSW tech pitch competition. The six winners include;

• Generative AI and Robotics: Lisa Milani, Co-founder of Nanocube Health.

• Sustainability, Circular Economy & Urban Innovation: Camille Goldstone-Henry, CEO and Co-founder of XyloSystems.

• Healthcare, Biotech, Future of Medicine, Augmenting Humans: Dr Chris Bladen, CEO and Cofounder of Zymedyne Therapeutics.

• Space Habitation, Travel and Transport: Kiriti Rambhatla, CEO and Founder of Metakosmos.

• Law and Order in Cyberspace, Security and Fintech: Sajid Bokhari, Founder and CEO of Geniepay.

• Game On, Let’s Play: Nilu Kulasingham, Founder and CEO of Stori.

Nanocube won the overall pitch gong with organisers saying the company now has the potential to join the winners from SXSW Pitch in Austin which are currently apparently worth a cumulative $9bn.

 

The Missing Link

So how did Sydney do? No one really knows at this stage because the organisers haven’t released numbers. But the view at ground level wasn’t great. NSW Art’s Minister John Graham had been touting registrant numbers of 100,000 but it rarely felt that busy.

Part of the problem was the venue or venues – the bulk of the business program was held in Sydney’s cavernous conference and exhibition centre (most found it to be a personality-free zone) with overflow into venues at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum and University of Technology. The Intel Extreme Masters, an esports tournament (which can pull 20,000 people by itself) was held in an auditorium away from the Convention Centre, although still in Darling Harbour. 

In stark contrast with the vibrancy of SXSW Austin, SXSW Sydney’s distributed geography dispersed the crowds, amplifying Darling Harbour’s usual sense of emptiness for attendees.

It is perhaps a little unfair to compare the inaugural SXSW Sydney event with SXSW Austin - which has after all been running since 1987 and attracted just 700 registrants on that first day! This year the 13-day event in Texas in March attracted 345,000 participants. 

The Texas event included 76,000 in-person and online attendees and 57,000 attendees to the four-day creative industry expo. The SXSW Festivals – the experiences that really lift SXSW beyond the realm of typical industry boondoggles – attracted 220,000 attendees. The music festival alone with over 1500 acts, pulled in 150,000 people.

The visual contrast with the Sydney’s SXSW was sharp. The music main stage area was set up on Tumbalong Park in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. It sat beside a gated community of major media and business brands encased in their temporary brand “houses” and drew tiny numbers for the most part during the day. The din from the chattering corporate guests was louder than any noise from the at times bemused audiences.

Actually, the corporate sponsors we spoke with were generally happy with the numbers they got through into their areas, but of course, they were chasing a smaller and exclusive set.

By Friday, with warm weather and the weekend beckoning, and the Sydney business community’s traditional preference for Friday away from the office (and any free drinks on offer) lifted the volume of people.

From the perspective of a business audience, it was the only day of the event that delivered what might be considered that authentic festival vibe.

All in all? 10 out of 10 for content, but a doughnut for atmosphere. Will we go back? That’s currently a 5 out of 10. Let’s see what the organisers come up with in 2024.