SXSW Sydney Appoints Claire Collins as Head of Music (EXCLUSIVE)
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Claire Collins is named head of music for SXSW Sydney, TMN can exclusively reveal.
Based in Sydney, the industry veteran and business owner will be responsible for the vision, programming, and execution of the week-long SXSW, which expands to Australia for the first time in October 2023.
In this new role, Collins will work across the music festival and industry content within the South-by program, which runs across a conference, expo, activations and networking events.
Collins is a safe pair of hands, bringing to the gig a wealth of experience across artist management, publicity, events and legal.
As brainstrust for Bossy Music, Collins has worked with a long list of artists who’ve gone on to international success, from Flume to Billie Eilish, Lorde, Gotye, Chet Faker, G Flip and many others, and managed national publicity for Laneway Festival across 15 years.
As an artist manager, she launched and guided the careers of D.D Dumbo, winner of the J Award for Australian album of the year; ARIA Award winners Art vs Science; and multiple Queensland Music Awards winner Sycco, among others.
Collins also brings to the position a legal background. A graduate in arts/law at University of Sydney, she was a practising solicitor at leading local entertainment firm Brett Oaten Solicitors and is a patron and former board member of the Association of Artist Managers.
SXSW Sydney will be the official Asia Pacific leg of SXSW, which has been held each March in Austin, Texas since 1987 and has welcomed speakers and artists including former POTUS Barack Obama, Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, movie directors Taika Waititi and Steven Spielberg and late funk master Prince.
Announced late June, the industry gathering and live music smorgasbord will take place Oct. 15-22 in Australia’s most populous city – the first time SXSW has stepped out of the U.S.
As previously reported, the Sydney event is a collaboration between TEG and the NSW Government’s events and tourism arm Destination NSW, and is led by veteran music industry professional Colin Daniels, who’s named managing director of SXSW Sydney.
In 2019, the year before COVID restrictions, the Austin gathering drew a total attendance of 280,000 to its official events, according to organisers, and injected US$355.9 million into the Texas capital’s economy.