A record 26 Australasian acts in first round invites to showcase at SXSW

The first round of invitations to showcase at South By Southwest (SXSW) in Austin next March has been extended to an unprecedented 26 Australasian acts – 18 from Australia, and eight from New Zealand.

The Australian contingent includes The Gooch Palms, Skegss, Bloods, Catherine Britt, Amyl & The Sniffers, Georgi Kay, WAAX and Tia Gostelow.

Among the Kiwis are The Chills, The Beths and Jackie Bristow.

Phil Tripp, the Australian, NZ and Hawaiian representative for SXSW told TMN this morning, “Since 2002, Australian and New Zealand acts have created a very strong brand, and SXSW’s programmers have in turn embraced them.

“This is quite obvious from the record invites today from both territories.

“Those in the first round have been the smart ones: they applied early and they got listened to early.

“They didn’t wait for the final deadline of October 25.”

AUSTRALIA

Acharné (Sydney)

Amaru Tribe (Melbourne)

Amyl & The Sniffers (Melbourne)

Black Rheno (Sydney)

Bloods (Sydney)

Body Type (Sydney)

Castlecomer (Sydney)

Catherine Britt (Newcastle)

Death Bells (Sydney)

Feels (Perth)

Georgi Kay (Perth)

The Gooch Palms (Newcastle)

Goo Munday (Sydney)

NOIRE (Brisbane)

Skegss (Byron Bay)

Tia Gostelow (Mackay)

WAAX (Brisbane)

WAFIA (Brisbane)

NEW ZEALAND

The Beths (Auckland)

The Chills (Dunedin)

Emily C. Browning (Christchurch)

Emily Fairlight (Wellington)

French for Rabbits (Wellington)

Hans. (Auckland)

Jackie Bristow (Gore)

Swallow the Rat (Auckland)

The acts will now have to officially accept their invitations after working out US visas, budgets and schedules.

SXSW is held for the 33^rd time between Monday, March 11 to Sunday, March 17.

There were 86 from the US and 33 from the UK.

Others were from Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Iceland, Hungary, Israel, Argentina, Russia, China, Ireland, Taiwan, Japan, Canada, Guatemala, Venezuela, Croatia, Afghanistan, Kenya, Norway, Mexico, Colombia, Singapore, Denmark, Mongolia, Netherlands, Ecuador, Thailand, Vietnam, Finland, Belgium, Greece, Chile and Bulgaria.