Christopher BarrettWith SXSW London kicking off on 1 June, its head of music Adem Holness discusses the strategy behind the live music programming, and the lessons learned from the inaugural edition last year.
Taking place across East London’s Shoreditch and Hoxton from 1-6 June, the second incarnation of SXSW London will feature more than 200 music performances, 40 showcase events, and 1000 speakers across more than 30 venues. Last year’s event was attended by more than 20,000 conference delegates, and 10,000 music and film fans.
Holness, who joined SXSW in 2024 from the Southbank Centre, where he was head of contemporary music, says core to his live music programming plan was providing platforms for global underground scenes to support artist development and reflect London’s internationalism.
Among the international and emerging talent set to perform across venues including Shoreditch Town Hall and XOYO will be Cure for Paranoia, Zion Marley, YUNJIN, Gaia, Oxlade, Jords, Iyamah, Finn Askew, Oscar Blue and Rabbit Cult.
While building the programme, Holness partnered with festivals including Notting Hill Carnival, and is working with the Association of Independent Festivals to ensure festival bookers are out in force. Here, he outlines what’s in store at this year’s SXSW London.
What led you to take on the role at SXSW London?
I really love making things, and so the idea of creating a festival from the ground up really appealed to me. I’m a Londoner and I thought the festival has a massive opportunity to do amazing things for London, and to reflect the London that I know and love – it’s internationalism. It just felt like an opportunity I couldn’t say no to, and now going into the second one, I feel really lucky to have been able to help shape it and make it feel like what I imagined it could be.
What have you learned from staging the debut event last year, and have any changes been made?
There was definitely a lot of operational learnings. With events you spend loads of time working hard on all the prep, but they don’t really exist until that first day; the first time people walk into the site. There was a lot we discovered just by virtue of having people moving around the festival. One of the key learnings was about how we take over Shoreditch. We wanted to make sure it was as walkable as it could be, and so it’s zoned in slightly different ways than last year. It’s a festival that has so many different components to it, so we’ve tried to focus the thematic elements of the programme together in parts of Shoreditch to create dedicated hubs.
We want people travelling across Shoreditch and taking in as much as they can. We’re working in some amazing venues that we worked in last time, and we’re working with some new venues such as Unlocked on Curtain Road for the first time, which we are bringing our Caribbean Music House to. That will be four days of amazing Caribbean Music, which I’m very excited about.
“As you go into each venue it feels like you’re stepping into a different distinct music scene.”
There’s no shortage of multi-venue festivals and conferences globally, how are you and the wider team working to make SXSW London a unique proposition?
London is already somewhere you can experience music and culture from all around the world, and that is a unique selling point for us as a city, and something we try to imbue in the festival. I really love that you can step out of any tube station in London and find yourself in a really distinct community. So when taking over 20 venues across Shoreditch, I wanted them to have that same feeling, so as you go into each venue it feels like you’re stepping into a different distinct music scene. We invite the people who are pioneering those scenes to present the future of music from their own perspective. Unlike other showcase festivals, a lot of people who are presenting with us are DIY, independent, underground, and diasporic community groups who are really driving culture in their own context. So you get this really deep take on some of the most exciting new music scenes anywhere in the world. That is how we were able to create something like the Caribbean Music House, whereas some other showcase festivals are often working with export offices and reliant on international artists showing up through that.
You are collaborating with Notting Hill Carnival on the Caribbean Music House, what does that involve?
The Notting Hill Carnival is the second largest street festival in the world and has an amazing history that, for me, is a unique selling point of London. There’s no major Caribbean music showcase on an international scale at any other festivals, and it is a music scene and community that we’re really excited to be championing. I see our festival as a platform for amazing music scenes and cultures from around the world, and for me carnivals are really important.
The event has a wide range of partners including BBC Asian Network, The BRIT School, Royal College of Art to organisations and the Association of Independent Festivals. What does AIF bring to SXSW, and are you expecting a lot of festival bookers?
Yes, absolutely. If I have done my job well we’re a useful platform for artists, and the music scenes that they’re a part of, to be able to realise their own ambitions. That includes getting them into new markets and performing at festivals across the UK, Europe, and beyond. We think really carefully about how we cultivate and curate the right talent buyers and decision makers who we think will be able to unlock opportunities for the artists. We have great collaborations with established festivals from across the UK and Europe, but we’re also working the Association of Independent Festivals to get the independent festivals down to SXSW London and their bookers to see some of these amazing artists. I’m really lucky that I get to be the person who ultimately decides on every single artist who shows up in the festival, and I take that responsibility very seriously. For artists who apply to play, we ask them what they want to get out of showcasing, and I don’t think we would invite anyone if we didn’t feel confident about being able to deliver on that.
So what aspect of this year’s SXSW London are you most excited by?
I’m really proud of the Caribbean Music House, because there’s nothing like it on this scale happening at any other showcase festivals. I’m of Caribbean heritage, and so I feel particularly proud of that. We’ve also got Seoul Community Radio, an underground DIY radio station from Seoul, Korea. What they are doing is unbelievably exciting; the music that is coming out of that station and that community. Some of those artists last year got signed to Hospital Records and got playlisted on BBC 1 Dance station as a result of them showcasing at SXSW London. I feel really proud of those moments. Overall, the lineup we’ve got this year is banging, and so I’m really excited about it.