SXSW London Programming Director on What to Expect From 2025 Debut: We’re ‘Converging Culture, Creativity and Technology’

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran SXSW London is positioning its inaugural 2025 event as a nexus of technology, art and business. The festival, set for June 2-7, 2025, in Shoreditch, seeks to differentiate itself through its emphasis on creative convergence.

Submissions are opening Oct. 28 for its conference, music and screen and film pillars. Katy Arnander, director of programming for SXSW London, tells Variety: “There are plenty of festivals and events that specialize in certain art forms or creativity or tech, but this idea of converging culture, creativity and technology is really unique and unique to London.

And I think that’s actually the unique point about SXSW generally as a festival and as a happening.” The conference program will feature 420 sessions across four days, covering 23 tracks in four categories: technology, society, culture and creative and business.

Arnander highlighted the festival’s focus on future trends, including AI and robotics, climate change, healthcare and renewable energy. “We can’t really have a conference that doesn’t engage with immersive, both on the technical side and the technologies that we’re using, like XR,” Arnander says, “but also on the kind of journey that the delegate or that the person going through the immersive experience will take.” Arnander has a strong theater background, with previous stints at Ambassadors Theatre Group, Sadler’s Wells, South Bank and Barbican, and this experience will come into play at SXSW London. “It will definitely be performative,” she says. “I don’t think we’ll be putting on a straight version of ‘The Lion King,’ but we might be looking at ‘The Lion King’ through goggles or how they render the color in a game.