SXSW Sydney

How To Convince Your Boss To Let You Attend SXSW Sydney

SXSW Sydney 2025 is the ultimate professional development opportunity for marketing and advertising professionals — but how do you convince your boss that it’s worth the investment? Here’s how you can frame your request in a way that highlights the direct benefits to your work and your company’s bottom line.

Demonstrate How It Gives You a Competitive Edge: Explain that attending SXSW Sydney will give you exclusive access to the latest marketing trends, consumer insights and innovative strategies. This knowledge will help your team stay ahead of the curve and create more impactful campaigns.
Show How It Delivers Immediate ROI: Emphasise the practical takeaways that can be implemented right away. Whether it's enhancing customer engagement, refining your brand’s messaging or learning about the latest marketing tech, SXSW Sydney offers actionable strategies that can directly improve your work.
Highlight Networking as a Business Opportunity: SXSW offers valuable networking with industry leaders, influencers and potential collaborators. These connections can lead to new business opportunities and fresh ideas that will benefit your marketing efforts.
Tie It to Your Company’s Strategic Goals: Link the event to your company’s strategic objectives. Whether the focus is on digital transformation, innovation, or customer-centric marketing, SXSW Sydney will provide the tools to meet these goals and deliver results.
Present It as an Affordable Investment: SXSW offers passes starting at just $295 for a single day, making it an affordable professional development opportunity. A 7-day pass offers even more value, giving you plenty of opportunities to maximise the experience.

By framing SXSW Sydney as an investment in both personal growth and your company’s marketing success, you'll demonstrate the clear benefits of attending. It’s not just a conference — it’s an opportunity to bring back actionable insights that drive results.

Recommended Sessions

From Passion to Paycheck: Cracking the Creator Economy

The creator economy is now worth over $9 billion in Australia and growing fast. But it’s not just for influencers - this booming industry offers big career opportunities across brand partnerships, tech startups, platform strategy and beyond. Whether you’re a creator, marketer, or entrepreneur, this interactive workshop unpacks the business of influence, audience growth, and revenue streams. Led by creator industry experts Hannah McElhinney and Jamie Searle from Snack Drawer, this workshop offers real-world insights, industry trends, and practical tools to help you carve out your niche and succeed in the evolving digital landscape.

Recommended Sessions

Why the new longevity should matter to your brand

If you are 45 or older and healthy, there is a very good chance that you will live to be 90, or even 100. While there was a slight dip in life expectancy due to the pandemic, the new longevity will mean that all of our life patterns and cycles are going to change. New longevity expert Michael Clinton has spent years advising brands and publishers on why this matters. The estimated wealth transfer from Boomers to Gen X to Millennials means older generations hold more wealth than ever before, but they’re not being represented or marketed to in a way that authentically resonates and drives purchase. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or a young content creator, this panel is sure to shift your perspective on marketing to the changing face of Australian audiences, and how they consume media and advertising.

Recommended Sessions

Brainwaves to Bottom Line: Neuromarketing in Modern Advertising

Modern marketing has evolved into a tech and data-first approach. While data-driven marketing is becoming synonymous with digital strategies, this session explores neuromarketing—the study of the brain’s response to marketing stimuli. Sarah Pelecanos, Founder/Owner of TwentyTwo Digital, a Brisbane-based agency, began exploring neuromarketing early on in her journey. Now, you can tap into her research to understand how the brain reacts to marketing and discover psychological principles that can drive your bottom line. While every brain is unique, there are key insights that can be applied to your brand to maximise impact and meet your business objectives. Not everyone has access to brain-tracking tech or advanced data analysis tools, but this session offers practical takeaways you can implement right away, along with a look at future possibilities using brain-tracking technology and best practices.

Recommended Sessions

Ethical Marketing is Not an Oxymoron (and neither are you)

With increased costs and competition, companies are finding it harder to reconcile the moral principles and values on how to promote, sell and deliver products and services with demands on the bottom line. Government has also struggled to keep pace with new ethical issues that technological advances provide. As a result Australian customers continue to be misled, manipulated and exploited on a daily basis. It doesn't have to be like this. As a business it is possible to hold and communicate ethical values whilst at the same time be profitable. Many Australian organisations have made substantial progress in an ethical marketing approach. Mark Blackburn has worked for some of the world's best loved including Apple, Carnival Corporation and LEGO. Now at CHOICE, whose sole reason for existing is to give Australian consumers a "a fair go", Mark aims to provide a unique perspective on how we as marketers can bring ethics and marketing closer together in a way that benefits everyone.

Recommended Sessions

The Best Ideas Should Never Have Worked

The best breakthrough screen, audio and social content has one thing in common; it never made sense on paper. As budgets decline and media competition increases, decision-makers are increasingly turning to known formulas, familiar faces and established “recipes for success,” when producing content. Yet, history tells us that many of the industry’s greatest success stories come from doing exactly the opposite; rejecting the accepted logic of the day. From breakout podcasts like Conversations, Serial and Call Her Daddy, to game changing TV like The Sopranos, American Horror Story, Bluey and Severance, we’ll walk you through why developing the next big hit demands big risk. Join content experts Anisha Khopkar and Laura McAuliffe as they discuss the ways our over-reliance on data and audience trends is stifling original thinking and give you tools you need to choose which rules to ignore and when.

Recommended Sessions

A New Word Order: Copyright in the Age of AI

As AI reshapes creativity, copyright and creative ownership faces unprecedented pressures. Governments are weighing the economic potential of AI against nurturing creators, asking fundamental questions across fair use, licensing, and copyright’s very definition. It’s all happening in real-time within a complex competitive landscape driven by conflicting commercial and national agendas. Is a balance between innovation and creativity on the horizon, or are we heading toward an intellectual property Armageddon?

Recommended Sessions

The Genius Gridlock of AI

Designed to inspire participants into action, the session is action packed, fast and gives specific action items and next steps that guarantee a shift in mindset as an output.This session on Genius Gridlock addresses why professionals may see a lot of AI and tech news, they need to start upskilling themselves, but they are stuck in Genius Gridlock – a condition where they are overwhelmed & unable to move forward. The session demystifies tech, sharing fundamentals and frameworks to better understand, and providing concrete actions for professionals to get started.

Recommended Sessions

From Passion to Paycheck: Cracking the Creator Economy (Marketing & Media)

Recommended Sessions

AI is Here to Stay, So How Do Artists Stay Ahead? (Creative Industries)

AI isn’t just a creative tool, it’s the music industry’s next inflection point. Songs can now be generated in seconds, labels and tech companies are training AI models on decades of recordings, and streaming platforms are facing an influx of machine-made music. But who owns what in this new landscape? How do artists protect their work when AI can imitate anyone? And what role do labels, publishers, and platforms play in setting the rules? This panel unpacks the legal and financial stakes for artists, explores how copyright laws are scrambling to keep up, and asks whether the industry is ready for the next era of music ownership.

Recommended Sessions

Visitor-Centred Design For The Built Environment (Future & Sustainability)

From the groundbreaking insights achieved with the invention of The O—the world’s first location-aware museum guide at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)—to the evolution of inclusive design practices at Pladia, this session captures a transformative journey in visitor experiences. Pladia’s Co-founder, Nic Whyte, will reflect on the challenges of creating engaging, accessible museum environments, explaining how early insights laid the groundwork for tackling broader visitor issues. Pladia’s CEO, Andi Mastrosavas, will share how those learnings were harnessed to develop scalable solutions that bridge the gap between physical and digital realms. Pladia’s Senior Product Designer, Via David, will talk through her exploration of visitor behaviour and the complexities of wayfinding as an inclusive design challenge. By balancing practical utility with serendipity, this session explores how technology and design can create more accessible, engaging, and joyful public spaces for all.

Recommended Sessions

Resale vs Retail: Can Pre-Loved Survive The Fast-Fashion Frenzy? (Culture & Lifestyle)

Fashion is faster—and cheaper—than ever, with giants like Temu and Shein dominating the market. Can pre-loved fashion compete? The resale revolution is gaining momentum, with platforms like Depop, eBay and independent sellers reshaping the way we think about shopping. eBay reports that over half of Australian consumers see secondhand shopping as a key trend and 84% have bought or sold pre-loved goods in the past year. But is sustainability enough to challenge ultra-fast fashion? Join industry leaders from Sendle, The Volte and eBay as they explore the forces driving resale’s rise and the challenges it faces. From shifting consumer values and the economics of secondhand shopping to logistics, trust and brand strategies, this panel will dive into whether the circular economy can stand up to the fast fashion machine—and what it will take to win. Sellers, shoppers and eCommerce innovators—don’t miss this look at the future of resale in a world hooked on speed and affordability.

SXSW Sydney for Marketing & Advertising: Pro Pass

Pro Pass

Why SXSW Sydney 2025?

The Top Three Benefits of Attending SXSW Sydney 2025

Gain Cutting-Edge Insights from Industry Leaders

Network With Global Innovators

Explore Practical Tools and Actionable Strategies

How To Convince Your Boss To Let You Attend SXSW Sydney

Recommended Sessions

From Passion to Paycheck: Cracking the Creator Economy

Why the new longevity should matter to your brand

Brainwaves to Bottom Line: Neuromarketing in Modern Advertising

Ethical Marketing is Not an Oxymoron (and neither are you)

The Best Ideas Should Never Have Worked

A New Word Order: Copyright in the Age of AI

The Genius Gridlock of AI

From Passion to Paycheck: Cracking the Creator Economy (Marketing & Media)

AI is Here to Stay, So How Do Artists Stay Ahead? (Creative Industries)

Visitor-Centred Design For The Built Environment (Future & Sustainability)

Resale vs Retail: Can Pre-Loved Survive The Fast-Fashion Frenzy? (Culture & Lifestyle)

Thought Leaders You Can't Miss THIS YEAR at SXSW Sydney

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