SWSX - Sydney

☀️ The event

SXSW Sydney is the Asia-Pacific’s leading festival of creativity and innovation — a week-long convergence of technology, music, film, and culture that brings together the brightest minds and boldest brands from around the world.

As the southern hemisphere’s edition of the iconic Austin event, SXSW Sydney has quickly become a must-attend destination for startups, creators, and enterprises looking to connect, collaborate, and showcase new ideas.

The 2025 edition continued this tradition, transforming the city into a vibrant hub of talks, showcases, and networking that pushed the boundaries of what’s next in business and creativity.

🥅 The challenge

SXSW Sydney is built on the power of discovery — but with an enormous volume of sessions, speakers, and experiences across multiple venues, helping attendees find the right content and connections was a major challenge. The team wanted to create a digital experience that matched the scale and energy of the event itself — one that made discovery seamless, fostered meaningful networking, and opened new avenues for engagement and monetization.

In previous years, the event’s digital platform had limited networking capabilities and lacked a structured meetings program, leaving attendees without an effective way to connect with each other or with partners. SXSW Sydney set out to change that — aiming to deliver an experience where every attendee could navigate content intuitively, meet the right people, and make the most of their time at the festival.

🎯 Goals

• Enable content discovery across a massive amount of fresh content

• Create a digital experience that matches the scale and energy of the event

• Test a structured meetings program for the first time

Here’s what the SXSW Sydney team had to say after running the entire 2025 event on Brella:

“Brella worked with us to realise our SXSW Sydney app aspirations — attendees could efficiently navigate our complex event and set up 1:1 networking meetings to suit their personal needs. With one comprehensive tool, they were in the right place to discover sessions, plan their day, and book meetings to make the most of their pass.

We saw more app downloads, stronger app engagement, better sponsor visibility and the added value of the networking tool was obvious.”

— Jono Whyman, Co-Managing Director, SXSW Sydney

“Brella's entire team was incredibly supportive throughout the entire process from early development ideas right through event week! Intentional matchmaking allowed our pass holders to meet other likeminded individuals and partners across industries fast and conveniently.

Our team spent less time troubleshooting and more time elevating the experience. The in-app journey from QR to schedule to meetings was simple, visual, and reliable. With Brella’s support and alignment with the rest of the tech stack, the new app became the event’s nervous system: everything and everyone connected, and able to access the most value from our convergence event.”

— Jordan Bryan, Digital Experience Manager, SXSW Sydney

In one year, SXSW Sydney went from “hope they bump into each other” to thousands of intentional, high-value meetings — all powered by a single app that finally felt as big as the festival itself.