The Union of Musicians and Allied Workers has published an open letter calling for higher pay for artists performing at SXSW. The non-profit organization has collected signatures from over 120 artists—including Eve 6, Guy Picciotto, Vijay Iyer, Zola Jesus, Wednesday, and more—demanding that the long-running music festival raise its rates to better compensate musicians, among other reforms. Read the full text of the letter below.
“The cost of touring, and the overall cost of living, have soared over the past decade, but SXSW has continued to offer the same disrespectful deal to artists,” UMAW’s Joey La Neve DeFrancesco shared in a statement. “The festival has continued to grow, and openly brags about the hundreds of millions of dollars it generates for Austin. Yet the artists who are the backbone of the festival continue to be mistreated.”
The letter claims that over the past ten years, compensation for artists based in the United States has come in the form of a one-time payment of $250 ($100 for solo acts), or the option to receive a wristband to attend the festival as a guest in place of payment; international artists are only offered the wristband. The letter also notes that the festival now charges more in application fees for artists hoping to play the festival, raising the price from $40 to $55 across the last decade.
UMAW is calling for SXSW to commit to paying $750 to all artists playing the festival in an official capacity. They’re also asking the festival to give a wristband to each performer in addition to their compensation, to offer the same payment and wristband options to international artists, and to remove the application fee, which has resulted in an “actual decrease in wages for SXSW performers over the past decade,” according to the letter.
SXSW is owned in part by Penske Media Corporation, the same company that also owns Rolling Stone, Billboard, and Variety. “The fact that the billionaire Penske family now owns the festival makes the low payments even more insulting,” UMAW’s Joel Jerome said in the same statement.
In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, also owned by Penske, SXSW said it “appreciate[s] the feedback from the UMAW and will be doing our policy review after next month’s event.”
In July 2022, UMAW worked with Congressional Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan to propose legislation for a new streaming royalty. The proposal followed protests organized by UMAW in more than 30 cities around the world demanding increased transparency from Spotify. They also launched the Justice at Spotify campaign in 2020, which advocated for a per-stream royalty rate of at least one cent, a user-centric payment model, and more.
Union of Musicians and Allied Workers: