Greens Slam SXSW Funding After Council Meeting

The Greens, usually supporters of music industry initiatives, have come out swinging against Sydney’s SXSW event in a City of Sydney council meeting this week, moving an amendment to remove council funding.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Councillor Matthew Thompson slammed the event during a council meeting on Monday, arguing that council investment should be going to more grassroots initiatives.

Speaking at the council meeting, Thompson said: “SXSW festival is low-key, a really shit event. It’s $2000 for a ticket over three days; it’s entirely focused on industry, it’s not accessible to community members, it’s not for [the] community. It’s for industry insiders, and we’re doing something to fund that? I hate that.”

While the Greens expressed disappointment about the council's support of an internationally based for-profit event, Lord Mayor Clover Moore argued that the council could support affordable workspaces for artists and creatives and an event like SXSW Sydney.

“We can support major events that are so important to the global city in terms of the tourism economy, jobs, providing jobs for creative and cultural industries,” Moore argued. “We also can support the community events and festivals.”

The Greens’ suggested amendment to remove funding for SXSW Sydney was rejected with just three votes in favour.

In a statement to The Music, Thompson argued that “instead of propping up a trans-national, for-profit corporation,” the City of Sydney should be “funding the things that local artists and musicians” need, such as housing and cheap, accessible creative spaces.

“We’re giving over a million dollars of public funding to a festival that costs $2000 for a full program ticket, isn’t accessible to [the] community and doesn’t deliver what local artists and musicians need,” Thompson said.

With that amount of funding, Thompson argued that the City of Sydney could “build, buy and deliver more creative live-work spaces” and ensure access to venues and other performance spaces, rehearsal rooms, and creative spaces.

Thompson continued, “We could even trial a basic income for artists. But instead of funding programs that would put more money directly into the pockets of local creatives we’ve instead filled the coffers of an American company that has no connection to our community.

“Council grants should fund local community and cultural events, not international, for-profit events.”

Greens Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore, who moved the amendment, added, “The City of Sydney is the only capital city to be losing artists, musicians and other core creatives.”

Ellsmore said that to prevent losing local artists to moving overseas for more lucrative opportunities, the council should instead be funding “more affordable places for artists to live, and more affordable places to create and perform.”

“This is spelled out clearly in the new Creative Strategy we approved as a Council on Monday,” Ellsmore continued.

“The Lord Mayor says we can fund both – more direct funding for artist live-work spaces, and more private festivals. Technically, that’s true, but it isn’t happening.

“There are rivers of public money being directed to private, for-profit industry events which deliver few benefits to actual artists, while the commitment to expand artist live-work spaces remains unfunded.”

In response to our request for comment on the Greens’ remarks, a representative for SXSW Sydney declined to comment, instead directing The Music to its website detailing the public events held as part of the festival.

This year’s SXSW Sydney included a week of free music programming held in Tumbalong Park, 163 free events and sessions attended by over 190,000 people, including over 30 artists from 12 countries, plus a full day of music from India and the Indian diaspora, +91 Calling.

In addition to the programs listed above, SXSW Sydney presented the free Fest by Inner West program, held in association with the Inner West Council. The event featured 36 artists across six Sydney venues on eight stages, with 22 artists hailing from Inner West Sydney, nine artists from elsewhere in NSW or the country, and five from overseas.

SXSW Sydney also, in partnership with Social Enterprise Australia and Awesome Black, provided over 500 free badges to applicants from diverse backgrounds.

SXSW Sydney also provided tickets for events far cheaper than the Greens’ ‘$2000’ price tag, such as $25 tickets for single session Screen Festival and single entry music venue Cover Charge, $40 for the Tech & Innovation Expo Day Passes (which include access to 55 high-profile speaker/panel sessions across four days), $120 for Music Festival Wristbands offering over four days of live music across 26 venues, and $295 for the three-day Tech & Innovation Badge, including access to the SXSW Sydney conference, festivals, and expo.