24 things we loved about SXSW Sydney 2024

Held on Gadigal land, SXSW Sydney bills itself as an annual gathering of visionaries, thought leaders and emerging talents from the Asia-Pacific region. The week-long program featured more than 1,000 events and networking sessions across the key pillars of Tech & Innovation, Games, Music and Screen.

Attending the event for the first time this year – after household Covid-19 scuppered my plans in 2023 – I found myself absolutely energised by the entrepreneurs and visionaries I heard explain how they are – or hope to – reshape the world through cutting-edge advancements.

More than anything, the conference acts as a second-to-none collaborative ecosystem/networking opportunity where incredible ideas are exchanged and future lasting partnerships are forged.

This morning I chatted with Caroline Pegram, SXSW’s head of tech and innovation, who, alongside the conference team, curates hundreds of sessions with over 1,000 speakers spanning tech, investing, startups and many more topics.

“A main highlight is the generosity of people who speak, partners and all who attended being open to many different things and embracing the serendipitous vibe this event brings. The entire team across all the key pillars and our operations teams, everyone single one of them are extraordinary people. To get along so well and collaborate on such a beast of an event is a really special thing to experience.”

“Other key highlight was adding a brainstorm session to the hackathon and gathering 30 experts attending the conference into the room to inform the challenge for the build. What, why, who and where we are building new technologies is so needed. Was a nice collision and experience for us and for BuildClub.”

Here are 24 things I loved about SXSW Sydney 2024.

1. The energy. The city was BUZZING

I lived in Sydney for 12 years and big events can happen without you even knowing they’re on, but SXSW Sydney approached Taylor Swift levels of buzz. Adopting the Uber Drivers Know What’s Up metric, every Uber I got in during the week knew exactly what was up, there was a palpable buzz around the city.

2. An Expo that was excellent

Conference exhibitions are often dull, corporate box ticking exercises. This was anything but, with brand marketing teams going all out to deliver excellent, innovative experiences (and extremely tasty activations, like Aussie Broadband’s sausage sizzles).

3. …and accessible

Last year SXSW Sydney copped a bit of flak for being inaccessible to the general public. This year entry to the Tech & Innovation Expo was $40, meaning plenty of people who couldn’t drop thousands of dollars for week long passes could drop in and get a flavour of NSW’s biggest event of the year.

4. …and full of serendipity

I heard plenty of people arguing that everything was very “samey” but I reckon if you allowed yourself to go with the flow, and devolve from your own carefully curated timetable of events in narrow niches, you’d quickly find yourself surprised and challenged.

5. …and incredibly informative!

My favourite such session was on the Expo’s Discovery Stage, and I only discovered it because I was busy filing. “Ageless & Unstoppable” tackled taboos and barriers around the perimenopause and menopause, and I learned heaps from a stellar panel including fitness expert Michelle Bridges, co-founder of Healthy Hormones Dr Ceri Cashell and nutrition expert Zoe Bingley-Pullin.

6. A giant handbag! Or was it a lock?

I attended a fascinating business breakfast hosted by Commonwealth Bank. Waiting to go in, I asked a fella – who turned out to be the production designer – why the event was being held in a giant handbag. Apparently it was actually a padlock. Obviously. On second glance.

7. A chance to hear from entrepreneurs changing the world

Plate It Forward’s journey began with a vision to transform the hospitality landscape by intertwining delicious food with powerful social impact.

“I didn’t start a restaurant to be the fifth best Sri Lankan restaurant,” founder Shaun Christie-David told his SXSW audience.

“The goal was to create a restaurant that people understood was a social enterprise.” The Sydney-based entrepreneur is on quest to be the the first social enterprise to have a recognised as a hatted restaurant. He shared how his ventures blends gastronomic prowess with social uplift, turning every meal into a mission.

8. Tacking the hardest problems with Aussie optimism and smarts

The most inspiring session I attended all week featured leaders in the climate space.

“We have the highest solar uptake in the world. Australia is right at the forefront of this. People love solar panels on their roof, they’re very proud of it.” – said Simon Holmes à Court, the man behind Climate 200.

“When I started working on climate there were just a few thousand homes with solar panels, now there are 3.8m,” said Amanda McKenzie, CEO Climate Council. “We shouldn’t underestimate how far we’ve come. Creating change is hard work, it’s often pushing shit up hill, it’s about individuals and groups working together. But change is happening.”

9. Energetic off-program events such as Startmate

Sydney’s iconic State Theatre was packed to the gills on Monday night for the latest iteration of startup accelerator Startmate’s Demo Day, with more than 1,500 people seated in the stalls and dress circle as eleven founding teams from the latest cohort pitched live: spot your author in the background below…

10. Top-tier global talent such as Eight Sleep’s founders

My most interesting off program even was a meeting with the co-founders of Miami-based sleep-tech startup/unicorn Eight Sleep, conducted in a penthouse at the Park Hyatt hotel, overlooking Sydney Opera House.

Among Eight Sleep’s biggest fans are “high-performing individuals” such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Scarlett Johansson, Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss, Kevin Hart, and Joe Rogan. Professional athletes also count on Eight Sleep for the restorative sleep they need to perform at a top level.

Back at SXSW, CEO Matteo Franceschetti and Olympian Shayna Jack discussed the importance of sleep: I wish I had a spare $7,000 for Eight Sleep’s Pod, which is clinically-proven to deliver an one hour more quality sleep each night. Jack raved about how it helped her performance!

11. Local heroes celebrated

Sydney put on a show. Darling Harbour crowds were entertained by Australia’s best breakers. The early-week storms cleared for back-to-back-to-back days of beautiful blue skies. And Destination NSW ensured iconic-Sydney businesses such as Messina Gelato were accessible to all. Mango Gelato FTW.

12. Incredible ICC artwork

I’ve been to lots of events at the International Convention Centre since it opened, but never multiple day ones. Strolling and working in the cavernous space I kept on being stopped in my track by incredible – often GIGANTIC – work by iconic Australian artists such as Ken Done.

Mr Art History graduate over here had a permanent smile on his face 🙂

13. Chance encounters

One of the joys of a big event such as SXSW Sydney is serendipitous encounters with folks you’ve been meaning to catch-up with forever. And I kept on banging into people I know, from the startup ecosystem, from Sydney, from the media.

It was wonderful to hear someone shout “Simon” and turn round and realise I was sitting next to the brilliant Bronwen, VC and startup correspondent at AFR-challenger media startup Capital Brief.

Self-styled Hype Man for Australian Tech & Innovation ?? ?? and LinkedIn Top Voice in Innovation ? Dickie Currer (emojis his own), was EVERYWHERE! Loving your work Dickie, and thanks for keeping me a place in the SXSW Pich Grand Final queue.

And I also caught up with my bitter enemy (and old mate) Sarah O’Carroll, the editor-in-chief of Forbes Australia, who has been doing a FANTASTIC job launching that storied name into Australia.

Sadly we had to do with Stone & Wood beers as there was no Guinness to be found at the ICC 🙁

14. Fun parties

It wouldn’t be a festival without a party, and at SXSW Sydney there were multiple options, every night of the week. An intimate set with Peking Duck at The Commons Chippendale? Check. A heaving post-Startmate booze-fest at Cargo Bar? Check. A big VC-funded late night session on the top floor of The Ace hotel. Check.

The most fun event – and eye opening – event  I went to was the intimate premiere and after party for the new season of Network Ten’s Shark Tank, held at the glorious Golden Age Cinema underneath Paramount House Hotel, and then – after a trip in a fleet of stretch Hummers – at a secret CBD location.

15. …that are also education opportunities

In the back of one of the Hummer/limo thingies I became aquainted with a type of person I have now learned is know as a “professional reality TV star.” These are folks who spent the northern hemisphere summer on shows such as Love Island UK and Made in Chelsea, and the come down south in our summer.

At one point a girl exclaimed “I’m so old!” As her mates nodded sagely, I asked her how old she was: “29!” (I turned 50 this year, and definitely felt it at that point).

16. Parties that are also pitch opportunities

At the aforementioned party at The Ace – which incidentally seemed to be at least 90% tech bro – Group Group supremo Garry Williams and I were accosted by a lovely fella named Dex, who showed off his awesome nightlife app Bardar (which incidentally seemed to be doing a better job organising SXSW Sydney sessions than the official app). Gaz also rolled out his party trick, suffice to say, if you’re impressed by yo-yo skills, you will be DAZZLED.

17. Pitches that blew our minds

There was terrific energy in the Climate Tech & Sustainability heats this afternoon, featuring Brisbane-based CO₂ removal company Carbonaughts, Victorian leaf protein company The Leaf Protein Company, and Western Australia ocean energy tech company WaveX, whose co-founder Simon Renwick explained how WaveX creates “wave energy when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow.”

In a convincing pitch for his startup’s giant floating generators – “bigger than this room, cylindrical, 15m in diameter with three connected together, each big enough to land a helicopter on” – he explained how his startup will  leverage existing oil and gas infrastructure and give existing win farm operators a new new option, arguing that “the wind farm producers of today will become the wave producers of the future”.

18. And are set to blow the world’s (DermR Health heading to Austin, TX)

A medtech startup that aims to revolutionise the future of skin diagnostics won this year’s SXSW Sydney Pitch Grand Final, and now heads to Austin, Texas to compete at SXSW 2025.

DermR Health is on a mission to prevent one billion skin biopsies by combining a world-first, non-invasive microneedle patch technology with genomics.

“The SXSW Sydney Pitch was such a success, with great judges, and great hosts – Dan Ilic and Holly Ransom did a fantastic job on the Grand Final. We had SXSW London’s team there, and they said the room had the best energy of the week, ” Caroline Pegram, SXSW’s head of tech and innovation told me this morning.

19. Lots of freebies

My colleague Tegan found a huge amount of freebies. I may have got my hands on a sunhat too!

20. …with COSBOA’s sweat bands the pick of the bunch

Yeah okay, I’m ready for tennis!

21. A chance to meet your heroes

I caught a bunch of sessions from a bunch of founders who blow my mind. None more so than Sam Elsom, CEO of Sea Forest, the Tasmanian science-based environmental technology company harnessing the power of seaweed asparagopsis seaweed to crush methane emissions and tackle climate change.

22. And get away from the herd

As mentioned, some of the best stuff at SXSW Sydney happened well away from the ICC. Like the event I attended at iconic Inner West brewery Wildflower on Thursday evening, which featured a real live dairy cow.

23. To hear your heroes

Why a cow? Because Huon Valley farmer/food guru Matthew Evans – another Tasmanian hero of mine – who followed up his ICC SXSW presentation on Milk: The World’s Most Controversial Superfood with an intimate talk over a few wild-fermented ales.

24. And best of all, it wasn’t a one off!

It is so exciting for Sydney, NSW and Australia to have such an epic event sparking creative connections, collaboration and surprise. Yes, there are plenty of contrary, dissenting voices – loving your strong POVs Joan! – but this particular attendee had an epic time, and a straw poll of startup reporters I conducted at the ICC agreed unanimously!

See you next year SXSW!!