Festival severs Army and defense contractor sponsorships after more than 80 artists withdrew from 2024 edition
South by Southwest Festival Ends Army
Partnership After Backlash over Palestine
Adrian Horton / The Guardian
(June 27, 2024) — South by Southwest has discontinued its partnership with the US Army and the defense contractor RTX Corporation for its 2025 festival in response to concerns from numerous artists who withdrew from the 2024 event, the festival announced on Wednesday.
“After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model,” the festival said in a statement on its website’s FAQ page. “As a result, the US army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.”
The film, culture, and tech festival, held each March in Austin, Texas, will also discontinue its partnership with Collins Aerospace, a subsidiary of weapons manufacturer RTX Corporation, formerly known as Raytheon.
Over 80 artists withdrew from the 2024 festival in support of Palestine after Israel’s invasion of Gaza, citing SXSW’s ties to the weapons manufacturer and its sponsorship by the US army.
The boycott was led by the Chicago-based songwriter Ella Williams, AKA Squirrel Flower, who published a statement on her Instagram. “These defense contractors make the weapons that the IDF uses to bomb Gaza. The IDF has now killed at least one in every 75 inhabitants of Gaza, [and] I refuse to be complicit in that,” she wrote. “I don’t believe that a music festival should include profiteers of war – I believe that art is a tool to create a better world and has no place alongside warmongers.”
The US army was listed as a “super sponsor” of the 2024 festival, and was slated to present more than nine events, while Collins Aerospace sponsored two events at SXSW Pitch, the festival’s tech showcase. RTX has supplied weapons to the Israeli government; on an earnings call in late October last year, its chairman and executive director, Greg Hayes, was quoted as saying the company stood to “benefit” from the increased Department of Defense budget due to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Shortly after Williams published her statement, other showcasing artists, including the Brooklyn-based emo band Proper, the Los Angeles-based indie band Mamalarky and the North Carolina-based singer-songwriter Eliza McLamb, followed suit. Mamalarky’s Noor Khan said it was a “really easy decision” to pull out of the festival, because “playing these two official shows could never bring us anything that matters more than the lives that are being lost in Palestine today”.
The festival initially defended the partnerships while supporting the boycotting artists, saying in a statement:
“We fully respect the decision these artists made to exercise their right to free speech. Across the globe, we are witnessing unspeakable tragedies, the rise of repressive regimes, and the increasing spread of violent conflict. It’s more crucial than ever that we come together to solve these greater humanitarian issues.
The defense industry has historically been a proving ground for many of the systems we rely on today. These institutions are often leaders in emerging technologies, and we believe it’s better to understand how their approach will impact our lives.”
In contrast, Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, sent a blunter message to the boycotting musicians. “Bye. Don’t come back,” the Republican governor wrote on X. “We are proud of the US military in Texas. If you don’t like it, don’t come here.”
The 2025 SXSW festival will be held from 7-15 March in downtown Austin, while a new offshoot will take place in London in June 2025.
Thank You to the SXSW Festival
For Dumping the US Army
David Swanson / World BEYOND War
(June 27, 2024) — South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It has been growing in size since 1987. The festivals just dumped weapons makers and the US Army out the door: “After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model. As a result, the US Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025.”
Here were the major sponsors in 2024: Volkswagen, The Austin Chronicle, Porsche, C4, Delta, US Army.
This wonderful development is not just something going right (such an unusual sight, in the words of Paul Simon), and not just somebody doing something right in Texas (I’m certain that it happens all the time, in the words of Lennon/McCartney). This is a mainstreaming of opposition to militarism in general — not just a particular weapon or a particular side of a particular war. This is kicking out on their gold-plated ears the profiteers from organized mass murder.
The US Army didn’t just throw piles of money (extracted as taxes from you and me) into this festival. It showed up and did propaganda sessions. A few months ago it was publicly announcing its plans for this year’s conference in March. The Army provided panels of speakers, sessions showing off its cool high-tech gadgetry (paid for by us to kill people we have nothing against), Army-sponsored happy hours, and Army exercise workouts. The humility in some of its event titles is staggering:
That an exercise session called “Unleash Your Beast: Army Functional Fitness” could have been acceptable is disgusting. That it was actually cancelled by the weather is hilarious: This one too: “Yoga in Formation Army-inspired Mind and Body Balance.”
The change in policy followed protests by about 80 performers who said they were pulling out. The story has been largely ignored in US non-entertainment corporate media, but covered by The Guardian here in March and here in June. It seems that many performers have other gripes against this particular festival that may have given added motivation. They may need a little encouragement to apply the same standard to all other venues.
A performer named Squirrel Flower was the first to act and said:
Yes, this was driven by concern over the genocide in Gaza.
And the performers were inspired by the advocacy of the Austin for Palestine Coalition, which organized the campaign here and used this link to generate emails to the festival. The emails opposed the normalization of militarism and asked for both weapons dealers and the US military to be excluded as sponsors and as presenters.
But this moment of activism around the Gaza genocide is unusually open to and often flows right into opposition to militarism in general. Various institutions have been moved to divest, not just from Israel or from Israeli weapons companies or from companies that provide weapons to Israel, but from all weapons companies everywhere.
Opposition to the war in Gaza includes an unusually high degree of understanding of the imperial and business components and of the long history leading up to it. Almost unprecedentedly, many are opposing mass slaughter by Israel and by Hamas as well. And, critically, the tactic of shaming the profiteers is playing a growing role.
We’re a million miles away from most people grasping the idea of opposing both sides in Ukraine or objecting to US/NATO efforts to prevent peace in Ukraine. Almost nobody is objecting to the ever-soaring military budget (except when it includes distractions related to abortion or trans rights). But we have reached the point at which it is acceptable to ask the US Goddamned Army to not let the doorknob hit it in the ass on its way out.
I’m reminded of another interesting cultural moment that suggested something might burst through if given a bit of air. Five years ago, the US Army tweeted a harmless rah-rah tweet and got hit with a burst of reality never encountered on corporate-controlled media. Score one for the Internet. These veterans and loved ones sound as disgusted as a West Point professor.
The Army asked: “How has serving impacted you?” Here’s a tiny sample of the responses:
Karen @educatorsresist 5h5 hours ago
Replying to @USArmy
I lost my virginity by being raped in front of my peers at 19. Got married to a nice guy who was part of my unit. He was in the invasion of Iraq. Came home a changed man who beat the shit out of me. He’s convinced y’all are stalking him and he’s homeless so great job there!
KrissyK
Replying to @USArmy
My sweet friend David can’t answer you. He committed suicide a few years ago after a couple tours of Afghanistan. #MemorialDay2019
Daniel GBO @danny_m94 5h5 hours ago
Replying to @USArmy
The strain of my deployment was too much for my wife to bear. She committed suicide in our home when I had just one month left. When my mental state deteriorated, I was sent to counseling so my COC could check off a box and say “they did everything they could”. (1/2)
I turned to alcohol and other vices. I begged to be sent to any other unit in a different state, just needing a change of scenery. Instead, I was demoted and discharged. Dumped like a bag of trash when I had at one time shown great promise as a leader and soldier.(2/2)
