CreaTeME Attending: South by Southwest (SXSW) 2025, Austin TX
CreaTeME attended this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, from Monday, March 10th to Friday, March 14th. The delegation consisted of 14 representatives from CreaTeME. The reason for the team’s presence at SXSW is to emphasize the importance of international networking and acquiring new knowledge, which will be integrated into projects back home.
Observing Trends and Gaining Industry Insights
During SXSW, the CreaTeME representatives observed new trends in cultural spaces and research, gaining valuable industry insights. CreaTeME attended a wide range of sessions and panels covering diverse topics such as workplace health, AI and emerging technology, cultivating vibrant spaces for creativity, business leadership, inclusivity in cultural industries, decentralized technologies, and extended reality (XR) in the metaverse and game development.
«Attending SXSW was an inspirational experience, particularly in gaining insights into the American market and understanding their perspective on the industry. It was refreshing and inspiring to hear that the focus of most panels I attended, which centred on the business side of the industry, highlighted the importance of authenticity and being genuine as an artist.» – Liucija Fosseli
Some notable sessions included:
- New Business Models for the Creative Renaissance
- Inclusion in the Music Business: Examining Leadership
- Small Stages, Big Impact: Saving Indie Stages for Artists
- Seeing Sound: The Future of Live Experience
- How to Create an ADHD Supportive Workplace That Benefits All
Showcases
SXSW provided a great opportunity to discover an international roster of new artists and music while exploring emerging scenes through dozens of daily showcases.
Highlights included performances by Benson Boone (US), Psychic Fever (JP), Sam Ryder (UK), Holy Fuck(CA), and nisatiwa x notep (TH).
«There were a lot of concerts in the evenings – some very good, others less impressive. It was interesting to see the level; some didn’t quite meet the quality one might expect from SXSW, but there were also several strong concert experiences. All in all, a fantastic week, packed with a program that was both truly inspiring and very useful.» – Ingvild Koksvik
Networking and Collaboration
SXSW facilitated valuable networking opportunities with both international and Norwegian participants. Some highlights were the St. Edward’s University mixer and a dinner with representatives from TONO. The interactions during SXSW solidified existing collaborations and formed new ones, with invitations extended to participate in CreaTeME projects, such as Violetta Zironi, who recently guested on Steinar Jeffs’ podcast.
Andy Harrison highlighted the benefits of spending time with various members of Believe and Groupspeed’s North American teams, including general managers, marketing, and synchronization staff.
“These meetings and hangouts are always useful for industry insights that I’d otherwise not hear about.” – Andy Harrison
Harrison also used his time at SXSW to meet up with the Associate Deans of Sarita Stewart and David Schreiber at the Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business at Belmont University, Nashville.Noting that these might become valuable partners in future projects.
CreaTeME’s leader, Professor Daniel Nordgård reports a very busy week with numerous meetings in between the panels and talks, following up on several dialogues and partnerships. Prior to SXSW, he and CreaTeME coordinator Ole Thomas Grimsli visited American University’s Kogod School of Business to further establish collaborations around student exchange and the yearly KRS-Open in Kristiansand.
Teambuilding
Experiencing SXSW together allowed the CreaTeME team to bond and get to know each other better. As the team are working on different projects across various cities and countries, the event provided space for discussions and brainstorming future or potential new projects for CreaTeME.
Photo credit: Norway / Texas Mixer, including header photo – Daniel Mendoza
Photo credit: CreaTeME private