Exactly. I lived in Austin for years. As @SomeDude points out below, we’re watching friends report ICE raids on social media daily as the Trump admin tries to make an example of Austin. Everyone has a choice about their level of complicity with ICE. You might not be able to decline to give them info if they show up with a warrant, but you sure don’t have to pick up the phone and call in a report.
7 Likes
Austin is in Texas after all. Shocking.
So to break it down:
- Artists come in to Austin for SXSW from all over the world, every year.
- SXSW is fucking huge. Every venue in town is either a venue for SXSW shows, or a venue for “off-SXSW” shows. (As a side note: that’s a lot of venues, considering that the only thing downtown that doesn’t turn into a club after the close of regular business is the police station. Auto mechanic? Also a club. Coffee shop? Also a club. If you’re downtown and not a club come 9 PM, you’re throwing away money.)
- SXSW has a program to help those artists arrange accommodations, which is important, b/c otherwise you’re on the street: tourists booked all the hotels months ago.
- SXSW offers advice to help those artists with the Visa Waiver Program, including offer of a support letter to bring them into the country. This is a huge liability if anyone violates the terms of those visas. Say, but performing illegal work. Like a for-profit off-SXSW show.
- SXSW reserves the right to kick anyone out of the program and wash their hands of the whole thing if that happens.
- That all seems like pretty reasonable ass-covering. But if you don’t like it, my advice is to boycott Austin, tell your friends as well, and above all NEVER MOVE HERE.* Or you could always make vague threats about never coming to Austin again and see how much we miss those dollars. (Hint: not much.)
*This message brought to you by the Austin Counter-Tourism Board. “Austin: We’re Full.”
Another side note: it would be nice if they also had plans to pay for permits for these shows. You know, to help the city cover the cost of all the cops on overtime when the world pours into town. But no, they get the city to waive it every year because it’s good for business. Ignoring the fact that they would still be doing SXSW if they had to pay for permits.
1 Like
Those ICE raids happen regularly. People actually notice them under Trump. But they brought in more people in last year’s raids (“under Obama”).
ICE raids are a regular thing, like the annual warrant round-up. Paranoia has actually made people pay attention.
(Funny enough, the most paranoid thing I ever heard about Trump came from an ICE agent in Texas.
“I don’t know, if he’s elected, I’m worried he might try to deport me.”
“Not only are you an ICE agent, you’re Puerto Rican. Puerto Rico is part of the U.S.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure he knows that.”)
7 Likes
The cool kids just call it “South By”.
1 Like
[quote=“SomeDude, post:42, topic:96244, full:true”]SXSW should be sweating blood to renounce this policy as quickly as possible; until they do, they have made an enemy out of me, and I look forward to spreading word of this far and wide.
[/quote]
Unfortunately, there are plenty of naive/ignorant/uncaring fools out there who are only too happy to fill the void (I don’t think there’s a limited number of passes, just a limited number of slots at any given venue. I believe this is a cash-grab tactic, as you can sell as many passes as you like, though only a certain number of holders actually get into any particular venue. Much more profitable than ACL Fest’s limited ticket system).
I know several musicians/groups that have performed at SXSW as part of underground or backyard “secret” shows, there is a big scene for this. There arent enough venues for everyone, and a lot of smaller acts want to play, it essentially becomes a house party with bands playing, and this goes on all over the USA and has for years. Is this kind of thing really cutting into SXSW’s bottom line? If some huge act plays on a big stage downtown, and then the next night shows up at some house party and borrows instruments to do a couple songs, who exactly is being ripped off? I’d say it’s the musicians themselves performing for free that lose money, but it’s their prerogative, not SXSW’s. The band could probably get around it by playing covers and using a fake name for the party show, a la Charlie Parker playing on the Massey Hall recording as “Charlie Chan” to get around contractual problems.
Look, if the issue is SXSW getting “bad publicity”, well, with this clause being discussed that ship has already sailed. And let’s say Radiohead decides to play some secret show, and SWSX decides to invoke that immigration clause, how much bad publicity would THAT garner?
1 Like
Obama was a lot crueler on deportations than people appreciate. But I do think that the current administration’s demands that cities use their cops to enforce immigration, keeping mayors out of the loop, teasing that new removal priorities are coming and then backtracking, calling to lower standards for ICE hiring in order to meet quotas, and nabbing people with whom there were existing agreements (DACA, people at immigration officer check-ins) is justifiably making people freaked out. I didn’t agree with many of the things Obama did, particularly bed mandates, but I do think that there is something both qualitative and quantitatively different about what is happening now.
Well, he or she wasn’t wrong:
4 Likes
Remember when musicians in general were counter cultural anti establishment types?
1 Like
So ICE was staking out churches to arrest illegals going to services last year? I don’t think so.
1 Like
Not trying to beat this into the ground, but the language quoted seems quite clear. (And I now understand from other posts there may be good historical reasons for it.) If that language is so clear, why did SXSW say it had been taken “out of context” ?
1 Like
Because they got called on it?
5 Likes
While there have always been asshole musicians, this isn’t a case of musicians being jackbooted assholes. This is a corporate board of media organizes being jackbooted assholes in a ham-fisted attempt to control musicians, one that is failing badly for them at the moment as act after act declare their intention to boycott the festival.
That theory collapses in the face of the fact that SXSW has been hostile to musicians who play sideshows since at least the nineties, irrespective of whether they’re sponsoring them for a work visa, and there’s been dickish politicking in the festival since it’s start. SXSW has long threatened to revoke festival badges and even cancel hotel bookings for acts they discover aren’t behaving like their fucking indentured slaves.
I fully believe this clause was in there for years. It simply shows that the damn greedy entitled bullies who sit on the board are willing to get musicians deported, that there’s no line they won’t cross in their despicable quest to control the city’s music scene during the ten days they invade and take over the downtown area for ten days each Spring. It’s just that people paid attention to the poisonous threats in the contract this year and noticed a parallel to the rampant xenophobia and bigotry running roughshod over human rights in this country.
4 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
