First Announce Southwest Music Festival artist line-up

South by Southwest Music Festival First 17 Australian / New Zealand Artists 40 Invited So Far, More than 60 Will be Invited by December 1.With over 40 Australian and New Zealand bands invited so far to play the 23rd South by Southwest Music Festival March 18-22 in Austin Texas, we can finally reveal the first 17 acts that accepted their showcase invites. They include:

AUSTRALIA
Blue King Brown
Anthony Snape
The Boat People
The Fumes
The Chevelles
Birds of Tokyo
The Drones
Infusion
Josh Pyke
Angus and Julia Stone
Kylie Harris
Naked On The Vague
Andy Bull
My Disco
The Temper Trap


NEW ZEALAND
Elemeno P
Midnight Youth

All up, close to 10,000 artists applied to showcase this year for 1800 slots in 70 venues over five nights. About 2500 were from outside the US and to date, 750 invitations have been issued with most of the remainder to be confirmed by December 1. Australian and New Zealand artists comprised over 250 of these submissions and based on past invitation numbers and the high quality of the OZ/NZ artists, more than 60 invitations are likely to be made. Over 250 paid delegates aside from bands and support crew are expected to attend and do business with over 100 already registered.


Despite the economic crisis, a number of resources have been offered for bands heading over including two sets of grants from the Australia Council, state funding from West Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria through their Arts councils and Austrade's continuing stand presence at the trade fair, advance promotion and publicity for Austin based events. These include the Australian BBQ with up to a dozen acts playing a private party for music business luminaries, a series of lunchtime concerts at the mammoth Whole Foods Market, an opening night party for the Australian contingent and guests plus other programs including a pre-SxSW teleconference 'Boot Camp' to be announced.


For information on the world's largest, most prestigious music festival, conference & trade fair, go to
http://www.sxsw.com  and http://www.themusic.com.au/sxsw
 

Published: 23 Nov 2008 by QMusic Newsdesk