News and Updates

68 Australian and New Zealand Bands Invited to Showcase at South By Southwest

9th December, 2008

Largest Contingent Ever Set to Invade US, 34 Accepted Invites So Far

With 48 Australian and 20 New Zealand bands invited so far to play the 23rd South by Southwest Music Festival March 18-22 in Austin Texas, 16 more acts this week have accepted showcase slots in addition to the 18 artists artists announced a fortnight ago. We are only announcing artists which have accepted, not all of the ones that are invited and this is done with artist permission.

AUSTRALIAN NEW ADDITIONS ACCEPTED
Dappled Cities
Resignators
Youth Group
Closure In Moscow
An Horse
Loene Carmen
Paris Wells
Kid Confucius
Red Riders
The Kin

NEW NEW ZEALAND ADDITIONS
The Tutts
The Brunettes
Connan Mockasin
Jackie Bristow
Ross Royce
Bionic Pixie

AUSTRALIAN PREVIOUSLY INVITED & ACCEPTED
Blue King Brown
Anthony Snape
The Boat People
The Fumes
The Chevelles
Birds of Tokyo
The Drones
Infusion
Josh Pyke
Angus and Julia Stone
Naked On The Vague
Andy Bull
My Disco
The Temper Trap
The Grates

NEW ZEALAND PREVIOUS ACCEPTANCES
Elemeno P
Midnight Youth
Kylie Harris

The 68 invited artists is the largest ever from the two countries, up from only five in 2002. With only eight of the invited artists having had to turn down their invitations so far this year due to scheduling, visa or finance issues, it looks to be biggest Antipodean invasion of the US ever.

All up, 9957 artists applied to showcase this year for 1800 slots in 70 venues over five nights. Australian and New Zealand artists comprised over 250 of these submissions. About 2500 were from outside the US and to date, 1450 invitations have been issued, 800 of them international. Over 250 paid delegates aside from bands and support crew are expected to attend and do business with over 120 already registered including labels, promoters, agents, managers & publishers.

Despite the economic crisis, a number of resources have been offered for bands heading over including two sets of grants from the Australia Council, state funding from West Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria through their Arts councils and Austrade's continuing stand presence at the trade fair, advance promotion and publicity for Austin based events. These include the Australian BBQ with up to a dozen acts playing a private party for music business luminaries, a series of lunchtime concerts at the mammoth Whole Foods Market, an opening night party for the Australian contingent and guests plus other programs including a pre-SxSW teleconference 'Boot Camp' to be announced.

For further info, contact Phil Tripp SxSW representative Australia & New Zealand
tripp@sxsw.com or (02) 9577 7766

For information on the world's largest, most prestigious music festival, conference & trade fair, go to
http://www.sxsw.com and http://www.themusic.com.au/sxsw