It’s 10.17 pm on a Wednesday and the Sydney part of SXSW Sydney has made itself apparent. “Sorry guys, we’ve got to close this area,” a security guard says to a group of people taking a breather at the Lansdowne’s upstairs beer garden.
Inside, it’s steamy: the venue, rebranded for the week as Spotify House, proves to be one of the most consistently packed of the festival, potentially due to the freebies – canapés, cocktails, tote bags – on offer all night. It also has some of the festival’s most ambivalent audiences. When Wednesday’s headliner, South Korean neo-soul singer So!YoON!, takes the stage, there’s a clear divide in the crowd.
The first three rows – about 30 people – are rapt, soaking up every surreal moment of seeing a K-pop star play a pub in Sydney’s inner west. Then there are pockets of industry figures who couldn’t care less, cutting through the set’s quieter moments with streams of work gossip. One woman screams, “Givvus a banger! Don’t you got a Gangnam Style in you?”
Such was the joy-cringe-chaos of SXSW Sydney’s weeklong music festival, which saw more than 300 acts play multiple sets across 25 venues from Broadway to Darling Harbour. Artists came from across the globe with varying levels of fame, ranging from hyped unsigned artists such as the western Sydney rapper Zion Garcia to the J-pop group XG, who played the 5,500-capacity Hordern Pavilion on Friday night to a mixed crowd of SXSW pass-holders and an ecstatic public.
As the first international edition of the gigantic Austin, Texas festival – an annual music, film, tech and gaming showcase that started in 1987 – SXSW Sydney is something of a coup for Destination NSW, the state government’s tourism and major events agency, who reportedly paid more than $12m for the rights. But given Sydney’s past decade of hostility to nightlife, the music festival strand attracted the most scepticism of the announcement. Did we have enough venues to get it right, and would our narc tendencies towards early nights and noise complaints get in the way of a full-city transformation?
But as the week progressed, confusion and snark largely dissipated, even faced with sharp midnight curfews and an onslaught of branded activations. As anyone who has been to Austin advises, it was best to lean into the ridiculousness – there’s a unique thrill in the endless vibe shifts, throwing away any plans in favour of following the wind.
Sydney rose to the occasion, dusting off underused and overlooked spaces. The Australian singer-songwriter Babitha brought 70s-indebted alt-country ballads to the dingy Agincourt hotel in Ultimo. The US TikTok stars Flyana Boss treated uni bar UTS Underground like a world-class stage, complete with skits and synchronised dances. Ben Lee – yes, Ben Lee – broke out every stunt possible to keep the crowd entertained at TikTok’s takeover of Chinatown’s Pleasures Playhouse, from launching inflatable dice into the crowd to handing out Iced VoVos mid set. At the restaurant Kyiv Social, the Korean brother-sister rap duo Goldbuuda and Lil Cherry bounced through Miami trap-meets-hyperpop beats at a pop-up hosted by the South Korean government’s cultural tourism agency.
Some gigs felt overly engineered: excessively branded events with little payoff, or label showcases where the majority of attendees were employees, or venues that couldn’t overcome their oddness. St Barnabas church on Broadway proved a combination of all three, home to the American Express and Universal Music stage. Activating for the sake of activation, it was a hobbled-together space with a pretty-but-pointless vinyl pop-up, in case anyone decided they desperately needed a $40 copy of Faker’s 2007 album.
When industry stuffiness was removed, though, SXSW shined. AThe rnhem Land group Andrew Gurruwiwi Band played a mesmerising set at Phoenix Central Park. Whole crowds thrashed around to New York indie-sleaze revivalists Fcukers. The First Nations rapper Miss Kaninna paused her high-octane set to sing a hymn about Moses in Yorta Yorta – the only song her ancestors were permitted to sing in language, offered as a song of colonial resistance, a bridge between struggles here and in Palestine.
But can SXSW Sydney’s music festival be deemed a success on great gigs alone? Looming large over any major government cultural investment is the question of purpose. Its Austin counterpart is renowned as a launchpad for artists but it’s unclear whether Sydney can offer the same, given it’s competing with both the original festival and Bigsound, Australia’s own well-established music showcase and industry mixer. Will it prove worthwhile for artists, who, in keeping with Austin’s payment scheme, were given their choice of a $350 flat fee or paid in-kind with festival passes?
Alternatively, SXSW Sydney’s music festival could establish its point of difference by transforming the city for all. A few free events, such as Saturday’s South by Inner West mini-festival at Marrickville’s Factory Theatre, offered opportunities for punters to get involved. But the confusing ticket model and steep prices – ranging from $300 to $1,895, with differing levels of access – largely locked the public out, rendering it an experience for the wealthy or well-connected, with an air of exclusivity that Sydney isn’t exactly lacking to begin with. (Anecdotally, I am yet to meet or even hear of a single person who directly bought their pass or wristband, all wer either given free as an industry pass or paid for by an employer.)
Time will tell if SXSW Sydney generates big success stories or if the festival name can garner global eyes that Bigsound doesn’t capture. Its first music festival was certainly a blast – hopefully more people get to experience it next time.
This article was amended on 23 October 2023. In an earlier version the rapper Lil Cherry was mistaken referred to as a member of the group XG in a photo caption.
