SXSW London 2026: Empowering Artists & Replacing Them
SXSW returned to London for its second annual run in the UK. After our disappointments last year, we were eager to see if SXSW would take on the criticisms from the previous year and become a more fitting counterpart to the Austin flagship.
Improved line up
One of our biggest gripes with the festival last year was a lack of diversity and scope of the music line up, a lacklustre screen showcase and a conference that lacked any depth and purely existed as a way to push AI.
Well this year there have definitely been improvements- with a music line up that taps into niches and genres as well as provided a few great mid tier following artists to draw people to showcases.
Examples like Dream State headlining the Bite Back showcase and Shame headlining the huck magazine showcase, it really allowed the artists in the rest of their showcase line up to have a good platform to be showcased. Something that the festival lacked last year. Some standouts for us beyond the headliners were; BEX, Master Peace, High Regard, Celavi and Honey I’m Home.
The screen line up came through with some interesting keynotes and panels like from Russell T Davies and a deep dive into the Project Hail Mary soundtrack alongside a stacked line-up of premiers and film showcases with the likes of mid season finale of “Rivals”, the heart-wrenching true story of Mohammed Sawwaf’s “Gazas Twins, Come Back to Me” spreading important awareness to the current atrocities being committed in Palestine, stand out gems like Olivia Wildes, ‘The Invite’ and big hitters like the rescreening of cult classics like “Avengers: Infinity War” with an opening panel from the Russo brothers, Anthony Mackie, Winston Duke and a surprise appearance from the one and only Robert Downey Jr.
With the Russo company AGBO being a main sponsor there was also some hype bubbling about the highly anticipated follow up, Avengers: Doomsday to come later in the year, with a pop up coffee shop and slight teasing in keynote speeches, the hype was immense.
Overall we’re really happy to see how much more there was for the film enthusiasts this year.
Even the panels had a boost of substance this year, with interesting and thought provoking talks about the dangers of the manosphere, exposing corruption with the Epstein files, Empowering black creators, Lighter discussions about London in Video games as well as conversation deep dives from the likes of Michelle Obama, Piers Morgan and Sadiq Khan.
There however was still a lot of AI glaze, probably not helped by their AI focused sponsors including IBM as well as Silverside - known for their controversial AI Coca Cola Christmas Ad. There is a huge financial benefit to an event like SXSW to be pushing for AI being normalised further in the industry. When SXSW has such a huge focus on human creativity in music and film as it simultaneously pushes AI normalisation in creative industries, it lacks substance in these panels and is overall detrimental to artists across the world who are losing their jobs everyday to this technology.
So overall a hugely better line up all round but SXSW needs to focus their discussions further towards celebrating these artists rather than pushing an industry killer with lacklustre speeches
Improved queuing
A huge issue we had with being an attendee at the last SXSW was the queuing to venues.
Last year, pass access was not uniform across venues and with some punters spending up to four figures on passes that should allow you to queue skip being refused that entry.
However this year it seems that all the venues now follow those uniform rules with priority access to platinum members, with a queue system that takes in priority first then follows regular passes straight after.
Now true to the advertising
There were also some fantastic networking opportunities throughout the festival this year, with a higher focus on round table discussions and more company hosted networking happy hours. Those who had festival access had more opportunities to network and talk to like-minded individuals in industries they want to work in. Incredibly valuable for young creatives wanting to get their foot in the door of these industries. This was hugely lacking last year and I’m glad SXSW has taken more importance in these spaces
However, SXSW has a safe corporate problem
My biggest gripe with the event this year was lack of transparency with attendees. This was something we pointed out last year but is still continuing to plague the festival into its second year running. With press and punters once again not being informed with royal appearances and line up changes. Many guests had to pull out due to visa issues and it was never communicated with anyone, their names would just be quietly removed from the schedule like they were never there in the first place.
This adds huge confusion and issues with scheduling.
The company also lacks a backbone when it comes to controversial visa denials. Infamously, Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur were both revoked their visa access at the last minute to the country as they were “not conducive to the public good” by labour leaders- this was believed by some public discourse to be because of their open opposition to the Israeli government. Both of these people were headline speakers and were simply removed quietly from the line up and that was that, it was not communicated to press or attendees at all. Contrasting with that, these guests were also both due to speak at the Oxford union later during the week, upon hearing the news Oxford Union came out with a statement that firmly stood against the decision “We have never turned a speaker away because of their political beliefs nor have we sought a permission slip from the state. We will not start now.”
Whilst SXSW continues to put itself forward as a non biassed place for conversation, their lack of communication and backbone on this situation to the public and paying customers is shameful. Even Piers Morgan, who opposes their political viewpoints called out the decision during his panel, “Oxford union raced to defend him (Cenk) and this organisation didn’t and I’m a bit disappointed by that - it would have been quite nice for them to stand up actually for free speech, demand that Cenk be allowed into the country and come and debate here and express himself in a free democratic manor if we believe our country is a free democratic country”.
Lack of pay
This whole situation also highlighted another issue with SXSW and that’s lack of pay to speakers. Hasan said on his stream following these visa issues that he wasn’t even being paid to attend in the first place “It’s not like they’re paying me, right? I’m not getting paid by SXSW to do this”. Following a conversation we had with one of the showcasers, it seems to track over to the music side of the festival too. With showcase creators being given incredibly limited budgets of roughly £300-£600 to put on the events that literally make up SXSW. While the same festival charges as high as £1560 for a single platinum pass ticket. It just seems greedy.
Overall, whilst there are many improvements to the previous years SXSW there is still loads of space for growth. With it only being the second year running, the festival has come far in such a short amount of time and we’re excited to see how the festival evolves year by year.
