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This means 2025’s festival, which ran from October 13 to October 19, would have had to have generated $76 million. The extension of the SXSW Sydney Unlocked program of free events in 2025, and the reported 35 per cent year-on-year growth in international visits between 2024 and 2025, may have contributed to this.
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Launched in Austin, Texas, in 1987, the annual SXSW quickly garnered a reputation as the “festival of festivals”. It was where Twitter (now X) broke out into the mainstream in 2007, and singer-songwriter Billie Eilish was discovered as an unsigned 14-year-old.
It was for that reason that cultural commentators, music industry heavyweights, and filmmaker Baz Luhrmann lauded Destination NSW’s five-year rights acquisition to hold a Sydney offshoot as an “unparalleled coup”, with hopes that, should revenue targets be met, another five years would be secured.
Packed rooms and big names (Nicole Kidman, Chance the Rapper) at the inaugural event in 2023 were a good sign that Destination NSW’s gamble had paid off.
But logistical problems, complicated and prohibitive ticket pricing, and general confusion over what SXSW Sydney was and who, exactly, it was intending to serve, saw attendance at the film/music/gaming/innovation insert-buzzword-here drop the following year, and questions over its purpose persist into 2025.
Nicole Kidman was on hand to promote SXSW Sydney’s inaugural event in 2023, speaking at a session spotlighting her production company, Blossom Films.Credit: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images
Despite receiving $100,000 in cash from the City of Sydney annually plus value-in-kind through venue hire fee waivers, SXSW Sydney said in a statement to media that the decision to cease operations reflects the prevailing market conditions impacting major events, festivals and cultural programs worldwide.
“SXSW Sydney represented an ambitious and meaningful extension of the SXSW brand, and we are incredibly proud of what was built in partnership with the Sydney team, Destination NSW, and the broader creative community,” says Jenny Connelly, director in charge of SXSW.
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“Over three years, SXSW Sydney demonstrated the power of convening global innovators, creatives, and leaders, and created a platform that elevated voices from Australia and the Asia-Pacific region onto the world stage. While the event will not proceed in 2026, we are grateful for the collaboration, creativity, and commitment that defined SXSW Sydney.”
SXSW Sydney’s co-managing directors, Simon Cahill and Jono Whyman, thanked partners Destination NSW, SXSW and the event’s sponsors, saying in a statement they “owe a debt of gratitude to the people who joined us” for the festival.
“We are especially grateful to the SXSW Sydney team for their dedication and hard work in bringing this event to life and establishing a platform that showcased Australia and the Asia-Pacific as pioneers in global culture.”
Georgie Healy, host of the In the Blink of AI podcast, said SXSW Sydney’s closure would send the wrong signal to local entrepreneurs.
“SXSW Sydney was one of the few platforms where early-stage founders and creatives could gain visibility and validation under a globally recognised brand,” she told this masthead.
“We’re very good at verbally celebrating success... I would like to see actual investing in the environments that actually create it.”
Jessy Wu is a former venture capital investor and now runs her own agency.
Others said SXSW Sydney would not be missed. Jessy Wu, is a Sydney-based entrepreneur and former VC investor who has been a vocal critic of the event. In October 2025, she called SXSW Sydney a “rent-seeking leech”.
Wu said she was happy to see the event gone.
“Destination NSW spent more than $12 million to import an event that immediately set about extracting value from a community it hadn’t contributed to building. SXSW Sydney charged local organisations $5000 to host satellite events, didn’t pay most speakers, and priced tickets at levels that locked out the many people,” she said.
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“It was a corporate conference cosplaying as a grassroots innovation festival. $12 million in the hands of local organisers could have done far more for Sydney’s culture and innovation ecosystem.”
A spokesperson for Destination NSW said the event had “played an important role in showcasing Sydney’s creative and innovation sectors” but it was decided after a review that SXSW Sydney would not proceed for 2026 and 2027.
“The event has delivered cultural, economic and industry outcomes for the city over the past three years,” the spokesperson said in a statement to this masthead.
“Destination NSW will continue to support a diverse, year-round calendar of major events that drive visitation and deliver benefits for NSW communities and businesses.”
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