The legendary South by Southwest (SXSW) festival might have started life as a music event, but the annual gathering in the Texan city of Austin has grown into something much more. It is now an international cultural juggernaut where film studios premiere their latest movies, US presidents make keynote speeches on the future of technology, and tens of thousands flock to see their favourite bands, boosting the local economy by hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.
It pulls in line-ups like no other — headliners range from Hollywood royalty (and sometimes real royalty too, with Meghan Markle’s appearance this year) to world leaders, tech bros and the next big things in music — and now it is heading east to Shoreditch.
