Industry Insights: What Cancelling SXSW Means to the Austin Community
After South by Southwest 2020 was cancelled amid coronavirus concerns, several creatives, businesses, and other community members must grapple with the ramifications.
Industry Insights explores the inner workings of the greater music industry, and what they mean for artists and fans alike.
Written by Selome Hailu
Photo courtesy of Mission Capital
On Friday, March 6, Austin Mayor Steve Adler declared a “local disaster” due to the spread of COVID-19 and cancelled all South by Southwest official events, which were set to begin on March 8 with SXSW Edu. The music and film festivals, interactive conference, and gaming expo were scheduled to begin on March 13.
The numbers alone prove that this cancellation addresses valid concern — the confirmed number of cases of COVID-19 worldwide has surpassed 100,000 and is still climbing. As of the publication of this article, 32 states have at least one confirmed case, with a national death toll of 17. Seven states confirmed their first cases on Friday, just hours after Adler’s announcement. Given that last year around 26% of SXSW’s over 73,000 attendees came from outside of the U.S. and even more from states outside of Texas, there was a high probability that the event would have sped up the spread of the disease.
But while public health and safety must come first, calling off SXSW does not come without grim consequences. SXSW has been an Austin cultural institution for 34 consecutive years, and in 2019, SXSW brought $356 million into the city’s economy. This is more than just corporate revenue — the festivals and conferences provide traffic that several local restaurants, hotels, retail stores, and individuals need to stay afloat for the rest of the year. So far, a loss of $1.1 million in income has been reported on I Lost My Gig, a site created to collect donation links for people affected by the cancellation. Artists, venues, and journalists are among those hit hardest.
Leslie Lozano is a local DJ who performs under the name Ella Ella. This was her first year as a SXSW official artist. According to Lozano, the cancellation and the virus itself make it impossible for people like her to get out of this month unscathed.
Between her performances and a few freelance social media gigs promoting SXSW programming, Lozano estimated that she’s losing at least $3,000 with the cancellation of the music festival. This estimate doesn’t account for the hours of work that go into planning for SXSW, much of it unpaid.
“One of my goals for 2020 was to be a South By artist. So 2018 and 2019 (were all about) preparing for that, working my butt off. Taking every set I could, whether I made money off it or not, just to get my name out there,” Lozano said. “For a lot of us, we don’t have a large team. We don’t have lawyers to look over documents; we don’t have people that can make phone calls to get sponsorships. This is all work that we put in on our own.”
Still, she believes that allowing SXSW to continue would have created the same financial burden.
“Even if you have health insurance, (getting tested for COVID-19) can cost up to $3,000,” she said. While the tests themselves are not priced at that level, a hospital visit to get tested very well might. “And a majority of the people I know, we don’t have $3,000. I think no matter what decision was gonna be made, we as marginalized communities would have been affected.”
Austin Mayor Steve Adler announcing SXSW’s cancellation. Photo courtesy of The Katy Times
Freelancers who produce SXSW media coverage are bearing a similar financial burden. Music journalist Bryan Rolli gets paid per article, and typically writes up to 15 articles about SXSW each year, published in outlets like the Austin American-Statesman and The Daily Dot. “The whole flow of the month (of March) is different because of South By. I put my other work assignments on hold that week,” he said, referring to Forbes’ Hollywood and Entertainment section, which he writes for almost daily during the rest of the year.
Rolli and his wife, freelance photographer Tess Cagle, both spend up to 12 hours a day working downtown during SXSW. He noted that Cagle had booked shoots for several all-day events for various companies, as well as some street fashion photography for the Statesman. She now has to scramble to figure out which of her gigs might still be occurring, and how to fill the remaining gaps in her schedule. Families like theirs have much on the line in the wake of the cancellation — Rolli and Cagle estimated a loss of about $4,000 in their combined household income.
Austin Chronicle Music Editor Raoul Hernandez guessed that he and his staff have written 10,000 words over the past several weeks in preparation for SXSW. That work will now go to waste. While he isn’t yet sure how much the Chronicle might lose in revenue, in an interview with Afterglow, he said: “I view (coronavirus) as a natural disaster. When you see … that a hurricane has hit an island, they usually report not only injuries and deaths, but they’ll give you monetary value of what just happened. And they put that same monetary value on South by Southwest every year.” Chronicle staffers are now working to figure out what to publish about SXSW, and Hernandez stressed the responsibility he feels to publicize how much help some Austinites need right now. “Obviously, it’s not just the money that’s not coming into town, but it’s what that money represented to a lot of people,” he said. “Bars have been known to say that as much as 20% of their annual income gets generated during two weeks of South by Southwest. That’s a huge, huge blow.”
There’s no way to recover the millions of dollars lost while still avoiding the spread of coronavirus and protecting the populations who will be most vulnerable to it. Still, cultural leaders in the city are determined to push through this roadblock. “We can’t sit back and let the local economy collapse. We can’t let locals’ lives collapse. So we’re going to have to tighten our belts and work really hard from now into the next week to get some things done,” said Cody Cowan, executive director of the Red River Cultural District. Red River is home to several of the city’s most beloved live music venues, such as Mohawk, which released a statement urging Austinities to invest in the local music and dining industries during this time.
“I’ve been encouraged by the amount of artists and business owners and event promoters who have banded together to try to fill in those gaps,” Rolli said. “I hope that keeps happening. I hope we can get as close as possible to a one-to-one replacement for the events that were supposed to happen, at least for local artists. The people who actually live here and work here are the ones that are gonna get hit the hardest.”
“We truly ride for one another,” Lozano said of her creative community in Austin. “We’re all genuine friends, so when one of us hurts, we’re all hurting.” She and the fellow musicians in her circle are working together to put on as many unofficial showcases as they can. Lozano emphasized that while calling off SXSW might have been the city’s only real choice, small artists’ difficulties during this time are partially a symptom of a larger cultural shift in Austin. People like her and her friends, she said, do not always receive the institutional support they need to be prepared for setbacks like this one.
“Moving forward, we need to figure out ways to truly support and make sure that local artists and local businesses are at the center of decisions being made when it comes to gentrification (and) corporations coming into town. I think we need to look at the little guys who have made Austin what it is,” Lozano said. “If we don’t, Austin’s not gonna be what it has been. It’s gonna lose it’s magic.”
To help support the independent creatives, small businesses, and others affected by the cancellation of South by Southwest, consider donating to the Austin Community Foundation or directly to some of the various individuals listed at I Lost My Gig.
This article was added to Industry Insights after its publication, upon the creation of the Industry Insights series.