SXSW Details Their International Artist Agreement

immediately disregarding this because they misgendered felix right off the bat
sigh

 

So for the sake of discussion, had they used "their" instead, what would you have thought about the press release?

 

That was the rare case where "their" actually would have fit very well in the flow of the sentence with no grammatical awkwardness too! Heh. I'm all for calling ppl by their preferred pronouns obv but being a grammar/syntax nerd sometimes I scratch my head at the awkward phrasing that happens.

 

they didn't even cover the major issue here, where they used the threat of an artist with an official showcase doing an unofficial showcase could be reported to ICE, which is totally fucked

 

english is already nonsensical enough as is, why not go a little further to actually use someone's preferred pronouns?
not calling you out, don't worry, just i hate that grammar argument

 

You can do both ten times out of ten, it just means taking an extra minute to think about phrasing and requires proficient mastery of the English language, which sadly is not the most common among people who string words together on the interwebs. (Get off my lawn!) And of course it requires being CONSCIOUS of the fact that oh for example just because someone is named Felix doesn't mean "he" automatically

 

That's fair, although it could have easily been changed to 'his' by a copy editor who had no reason to know Felix has a preferred pronoun. Now I'm not saying that's what happened in this instance, and a festival organizer with an issue like this involving a specific artist should probably be careful/familiar enough with the preferences surrounding Told Slant. But broadly speaking, I could imagine it's the type of mistake that could be made with no ill-intent, or not even out of ignorance.

 

i don't know much about immigration law, but this makes sense (and realistically is probably just boilerplate legal liability stuff) if the case is that the "perform without a visa" is sponsored/directly ties the SXSW organizers to the artist. because if so then the festival organizers would be held to some liability.


The statement implies that this has always been in the artist agreement. anyone know if that's actually the case ?

 

Yeah, it's always been there. SXSW is just protecting their own interests and if a band is violating the festival agreement and that in turn violates their visa stipulations, I think it's perfectly reasonable to report it... sure it's not nice but it's spelled out in black and white.

Power to Felix for weighing the risk, making a decision and alerting others about it. It may have been blown out of proportion but I can totally understand the concern over the agreement.

 

Your last point seems pretty relevant, because I imagine it is the sort of standard legal language that would have always been in the contracts because of work visas, but now with today's political climate and the government ridiculously cracking down, suddenly it becomes a lot more menacing and has strong implications, which never would have been at risk before.

To cwhit's earlier post though, I agree, they could have been a lot clearer speaking out against that.

 

the contract said "if SXSW, determines, in its sole discretion, the showcasing acts or their representatives have acted in ways that adversely affect the viability of their OFFICIAL SXSW showcase"

that's so loose and allows SXSW to fight against unofficial showcases

plus it's disgusting that they are even using that as a threat in the first place especially as an event that wants people to think that they care about the arts

 

Exactly. The whole platform of SXSW was always "Come get exposure for new fans/industry members and be a part of something great." This entirely contradicts that.

And I do think that if it wasn't such loose phrasing, if they used it in a way that actually referenced their specifications in their response "does something truly egregious, such as disobeying our rules about pyrotechnics on stage, starting a brawl in a club, or causing serious safety issues", it would at least make it a BIT less heinous.

 

the problem is that the contract insinuates that SXSW has power that if they feel things are not to their liking, they will deport your ass

not to mention a lot of these bands are doing full tours as well