At most brand activations during South by Southwest (SXSW), the format is familiar: a logo-plastered venue, a curated guest list, a panel or two, and a lot of standing around waiting for something to happen. Creators have noticed.

Fatima Conteh, Head of Events & Experiences at messaging automation platform Manychat, designed the company’s SXSW 2026 activation specifically around what creators say they actually want, and what many brands fail to deliver. The result? A six-hour event on March 14 at Daydreamer in East Austin that drew more than 850 attendees and a line that formed before the doors even opened.

“Creators are really hungry for spaces that are not asking anything of them directly,” Fatima says. “No pitch, no performance. Just the permission to be in the room with other like-minded individuals, to breathe, to connect, to learn.”

Fatima joined Manychat as Head of Events in July 2024, leading a team of three. Her mandate spans the company’s full global event calendar, from flagship moments like the Instagram Summit by Manychat to major industry activations at Cannes Lions, VidCon, and SXSW. The SXSW activation, branded as “Creator Hub | Club,” represented an attempt to rethink what a brand-sponsored creator event can be.

The Hub | Club Format: Productive and Present

The activation divided its six hours into two distinct phases. The Hub ran from 3 to 7 p.m. and centered on structured but unscripted conversation. The Club followed from 7 to 9 p.m. and shifted the energy toward celebration. The distinction was intentional, and the transition was engineered to be felt.

The Hub featured two creator “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) sessions, each with five or six creators on stage, where questions came entirely from the audience rather than a moderator or prepared script. Alongside the AMAs, hosted tables organized around reels, monetization, and content strategy let attendees move freely between conversations, each one led by a featured creator.

“Instead of a traditional panel, the questions were fully driven by the audience,” Fatima explains. “The creators in the crowd asked the questions to the creators on the stage.” There were no formal talking points. The structure was designed to create conditions for organic conversation, not to manage one.

The Club transition was timed to coincide with the literal shift from day to night. DJ Cass made the announcement, then cued a conga line with “follow me” signs leading into the new energy. Sparklers, champagne, dancers, and a saxophone player marked the shift. Reality TV DJ Kyle Cooke performed on top of a shipping container outside, drawing a crowd from a neighboring restaurant that lined up in the parking lot and started selling drinks to the overflow.

“We really wanted to create this high-energy moment that made the shift obvious to our attendees,” Fatima says. “And the cool thing was, it really helped people be excited and stay for longer.”

What the Conversations Actually Revealed

The table discussions during The Hub produced something harder to script: unfiltered honesty. Fatima says conversations moved quickly past surface-level networking into the real challenges creators face in their work.

“Creators were so eager to talk about what they were actually working on, what challenges they were facing, and even just the problems they were actively trying to solve in real time,” she says.

What stood out as much as the topics was the emotional weight of the room. Attendees were meeting creators they had followed for years and asking questions they had been holding onto. “Those are the things that change lives and people really remember for the rest of their lives,” Fatima notes. For her team, witnessing those moments in real time was the clearest measure of whether the format was working.

That dynamic validated a core premise behind the activation: creators at industry conferences are not primarily looking for more content consumption. They are looking for a connection they cannot get online. “There’s such a huge appetite for not just being seen or posting content, but actually being together in a real way,” Fatima says.

Brands in the Room, Not at the Center

One of the more deliberate choices Manychat made was how to handle brand and agency presence. There were no formal brand partnerships, no sponsored activations, no branded corners or structured product placements.

“We opened the doors to brand marketers and social media marketers and brought them into the room alongside the creators and everyone else as attendees,” Fatima says. “We didn’t have a ‘meet the brand’ activation.”

As Fatima explains, the logic was straightforward: creators and brands are going to work together eventually. Putting them in the same room without transactional pressure allows those relationships to form on better terms. “No forced pitches, no forced interactions,” she says. “Just organic conversations between people coming together on shared interests, which leads to tighter connections and business over time.”

She adds that the positioning also reflected a broader critique of how most brands approach events. “A lot of brands are building for optics and not their audience,” Fatima says. “Their activation will look great online. But if you’re actually in the room, you have to ask yourself: What am I actually getting? What do I do? What am I sharing about where I’m currently standing?”

The absence of forced brand integration, she argues, was itself a strategic choice. “It’s not enough to just have a luxury, exclusive event. It’s about what you’re fully getting out of that experience, how you’re using your time when you’re there.”

When Demand Exceeds the Plan

The activation exceeded projections in one unexpected way: demand. With more than 1,200 RSVPs, according to Fatima, and a venue at capacity from the moment doors opened, the line became a real-time operational challenge that had to be converted into an opportunity.

“We turned the line into an opportunity,” Fatima says. The team served matcha and water to people waiting outside. Kyle Cooke did an impromptu meet-and-greet in the queue, giving some guests closer access than those already inside. Creators also began connecting while waiting, effectively extending the event’s programming before it officially started.

In the near future, Fatima says the model needs pressure-tested scaling. “How big can this get before it stops being special?” she asks. Possibilities under consideration include a larger venue, a two-day format, and modest attendance expansion of 200 or 300 more people. “There is a level of exclusivity, of FOMO, of all these different things that worked to the success of the event,” she notes.

What the Model Signals About the Creator-Brand Relationship

The Hub | Club format is not just an event design choice. Fatima sees it as a signal about where the creator-brand relationship is heading, and a challenge to brands that still approach creator activations as awareness plays.

“Creators don’t want to be marketed to,” she says. “They really want to be built with. And they can tell very quickly when something is pitched for them versus actually built for them.”

For brands, that distinction requires a structural shift that places creator experience at the center of activation design rather than brand visibility. “It’s less about the brand being the focus and more about creating the kind of space where those connections can genuinely happen,” Fatima says.

Manychat’s bet at SXSW was that demonstrating value to creators without extracting anything in return would do more for the brand than any logo placement or structured partnership. The feedback they received suggests the calculation paid off. “What gets shared and what gets amplified about an event really is just as important as who’s in the room,” Fatima notes.

Building the Rest of the Year

For Manychat’s events team, SXSW is one node in a year-round activation calendar. Cannes Lions is next in June, followed by Hotmart FIRE in September, and the company’s own summit in October. Each event is designed to serve specific segments of the creator and brand marketing communities that Manychat’s platform sits at the center of.

The through-line, Fatima says, is the same principle that drove the SXSW format: that the most durable brand-creator relationships are built in rooms where neither side is performing for the other.

“It’s our absolute pleasure to create experiences where creators can grow, make connections that matter to their business, and shine,” she says.

Photo credits: Isaac Rowry

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