What you need to know:

• Seven Chief Revenue Officer convinced the group’s top brass to spend big and partner with South by Southwest Sydney.
• The network is overhauling its upfronts, hosting them across the week-long creative-innovation-music-gaming-screens event, the first outside of Austin, Texas.
• Burnette and CMO Mel Hopkins aim to put Seven at the heart of the creative-tech nexus – and blow domestic and international rivals out of the water.
• Marketing, media and tech types make up the biggest cohorts of SXSW’s audience – and the Sydney event is following that trend.
• Organiser Colin Daniels urges marketers and the media supply chain to think outside the box, stay curious and not just tick off the obvious sessions – or risk missing out.
• He thinks some of the next biggest things, and competitive advantage, will be discovered by those that think more laterally.

Creative motherlode incoming

Uber launched at South by Southwest, as did Twitter, Pinterest and Foursquare. Billie Eilish was discovered as an unsigned 14-year old. Mumford & Sons first made their name at the creative-tech-culture jamboree in Austin, Texas. Now it’s coming to Sydney – and in three months time the world will learn whether the powerhouse event can replicate itself outside of the Lone Star State.

South by Southwest Sydney managing director, Colin Daniels, is backing Sin City to deliver – he expects 60-80,000 people to turn up over the week-long event. Talent and talent scouts are coming from the other side of the world and so too brands and marketing types. The latter two make up South by Southwest Austin's biggest delegate numbers and so far, says Daniels, it's tracking along similar lines locally.

Futurist Amy Webb, Coachella co-founder Paul Tollet and Slack co-founder Cal Henderson join “titans of every industry”, per Daniels, with the event in conversation with more than 500 brands lining up to participate and a tonne of start-ups vying to pitch their wares to VCs, tech and media firms. For good reason – Daniels says the total capital raised for all of the SXSW pitch entrants to date has exceeded $14bn.

So what can Sydney expect?

“Anything's possible – that's the great thing about South by Southwest. They say that the magic happens when you have the convergence of all these creative industries in one place at one time,” per Daniels.

“It is about discovery, growth and a look into the future of creative industries and culture. We have over 70 featured speakers that would be a keynote at most other events in the world. In addition to that, we have more than 300 conference panels,” whittled down from some 1,700 submissions.

What downturn?

Daniels says economic headwinds appear to have neither dampened the appetite of sponsors and partners nor delegates willing to pay north of $1,000 for passes.

“Connection is recession proof,” he suggests. “People want to be close to each other. They want to hear about what's coming next, they want to network. 60 per cent of attendees at South by Southwest mark networking as the number one reason they attend. The number two reason is business development.”

No surprise then that the marketing industry is snapping up tickets. “Brands and the marketing and advertising industry have a strong presence at South by Southwest, as does the tech industry – and both of those are number one and number two of our delegates this year,” says Daniels.

Seven West Media is keen to show the incoming horde what it can do – and where it sees the future of TV heading. The network has gone “all-in” as a SXSW Sydney partner – and plans to raise the upfront stakes by hosting them at the week-long event in a very different format.

Seven goes large

Last year Seven’s upfront was pre-filmed. The network played a documentary-style piece on cinema screens to brands and buyers. It packed everything in, and built a literal wall of content across the big screen, a solid slate writ large. But it arguably lacked spark, given the fireworks at Foxtel and Nine.

This year it’s taking an entirely different approach, partnering with South By Southwest Sydney and going the whole immersive hog across seven days in the city.

It’s a big investment. Chief Revenue Officer Kurt Burnette had to bat hard to secure the funds – without really having a clear idea of what he was pitching.

All he knew was that after being involved in upfronts for 25 years, it was time to do something different. Because Seven, per Burnette, is now doing things very differently, investing heavily in “transformation”, and he claims, “reengineering the future of TV.”

Either way, it struggles to shake off a “perception problem” as an older-skewing, older school TV network in a market where some insist ‘TV is dead’.

“So how do we not just tell our story but share our story? Not just talking about it for an hour and a half at an upfront, but over seven days. Not just to 1,000 people, but to 60,000 people, or 80,000 people,” says Burnette.

So he knocked on Seven CEO James Warburton’s door and asked for a truckload of money to partner with SXSW.

“I said: ‘Here’s an opportunity that is going to be pretty rare, we need to get into it. I don’t know what the idea is, except we need to be there. But I think we can showcase all the things that we're doing – and talk not just to advertisers but consumers.’”

As pitches go, probably not investment grade in terms of specifics. How did it land?

“I have to say it was a bit of a tough conversation internally,” admits Burnette. “It took a lot of debate to get the commitment to do it. But James backed me – and here we are. It just felt right – not just talking about what we do, but showing what we do.”

The bigger idea

CMO Mel Hopkins joined from Optus at the start of the year. She will be one the executive producers of Seven’s South by South West upfronts. Ahead of taking the job, getting involved with the first SXSW outside of Austin was a big carrot.

She and Burnette talked about the broader Seven West business as well as SXSW Sydney during the early recruitment stages. Burnette claims he told the truth. “Most of it,” confirms Hopkins. “But she was so pumped. We’re both aligned on this. The whole business is aligned on this,” says Burnette. “But that’s the long story of the why.”

Just how big a bet has James Warburton signed off? Burnette’s not disclosing the zeros. “It’s significant. But we are not just going to be in it, we’re going to be part of it. We’re going to promote it, help be the voice of it and tell those stories wider,” he says.

“So it is a big investment. But the creative idea needs to be ten times bigger – and that’s what it’s going to be.”

Not dead, not just a wrapper

No pressure then for Mel Hopkins. But the former Optus CMO insists that Seven fully deserves its place at the heart of SXSW. Seven, she states, is “a hive of creativity”.

“We’re passionate about the Australian media and creative industry. That is our future and it's where we've come from,” says Hopkins.

“We know that we're in great company with the Googles and TikToks and Metas, but they're not homegrown creative and media businesses … We punch way above our weight globally and that is something we really wanted to champion.”

While the growth of streaming platforms has given grist to the mills of those proclaiming ‘TV is dead’, Hopkins suggests Seven goes toe-to-toe with the largest global platforms. “Channel Seven reaches 17 million Australians every single month. Youtube reaches 17 million Australians every single month,” Hopkins points out. She also has a dig at other rivals.

“There is this view that we are being killed by the streaming platforms, but I’ve got facts and figures on something like The Rookie, which reaches about 500,000 Australians per week, and the hard to reach 15-21 [year old] audience. The data we’ve got shows that’s double the amount Succession ever did,” says Hopkins.

“So we’re not dead, we’re punching above our weight and we’re here to change and shape the market.”

Hopkins is baking that mantra into Seven’s SXSW masterplan.

“South by Southwest is not like any regular industry event where you just whack your booth up and you do your own thing … The upfront programme must feel worthy of South by Southwest – and that’s really changed the stakes of how we approach our entire upfronts,” she says.

“This is not about sales and marketing doing some pretty wrapper at an event. This is about us throwing ourselves all-in.

“We're committed to bringing South by Southwest to all of Australia, but also demonstrating to all of the delegates the amazing tech and creativity that we have. A lot of that is our broadcast talent – our digital news team are going to be based down there, Sunrise are down there doing crosses. We'll be able to give sneak peeks of innovation with some super special partners. So this is not a badging process for us,” adds Hopkins. “We’ve got to be authentic and show up.”

Ditch swim lanes, stay curious, party

Hopkins urges marketers to take inspiration from what SXSW will bring to Sydney – and use the proof-points to help underpin new approaches.

"These events drive a level of curiosity. So you start thinking about things differently … For a lot of CMOs to put your head above the parapet and going first [with a new approach or strategy] is terrifying, and many don’t like to do that. I think that South by Southwest inspires those that are the market shapers – and those that are a little nervous – to see great case studies where it's worked previously."

SXSW Sydney MD, Colin Daniels, says discovery and curiosity are key to getting the most out of the event. He urges people to get out of their swim lanes.

"Go outside of your industry and outside of you comfort zone," says Daniels. "It's the convergence that makes the event so special. There's more than 19 conference tracks from climate and sustainability, health and well being, sport, the music industry, the screen industry, tech and innovation, robotics and AI … There is so much to see. Take a punt – don't just pick the obvious. When you've got a spare moment, go and see something different. Some of the best discoveries I've had at South by Southwest and some of the best learnings have been from just randomly popping into something."

Plus, he says, network – and party – like crazy.

"There are hundreds of meet-up events, launches, happy hours, the day parties for which SXSW is famous – in fact, they can consume your whole day and for some people that seems to consume their whole night as well," says Daniels.

"Pop into a brand’s taco breakfast, pop into a tech start-up's lunch and presentation, pop into Channel Seven house daily, turn up to happy hours for the music industry and gaming industry. And of course the product launches: Uber launched at South by Southwest, as did Twitter, Pinterest, Foursquare – there's always a lot of product launches at South by Southwest," he says. "Go and see them."