SXSW Under Fire Over Artist Deportation Contract Clause
Felix Walworth is a Brooklyn-based musician who has played in Eskimeaux, Florist, and Bellows. Currently, they lead the band Told Slant. Today, they announced that Told Slant are canceling their performance at SXSW, due to contract language that allows the festival to “notify the appropriate U.S. immigration authorities” if they “or their representatives have acted in ways that adversely affect the viability of their official SXSW showcase.” They have also called on other artists to cancel their SXSW showcases. See their tweets below.
Joining Walworth’s call for boycott, Victoria Ruiz of Downtown Boys tweeted, “if ur playing/going/writing about #sxsw plz dm me. i need yr help with a petition against their threats against international artists.” In 2015, Ruiz’s bandmate Joey La Neve DeFrancesco posted a portion of their SXSW contract with similar language to what is in Told Slant’s 2017 contract, and recently bumped the message saying, “sxsw has been doing this shit for yrs (which means it’s worse that they continue it, not that it’s ok cause it’s old).”
SXSW CEO and co-founder Roland Swenson has issued the following statement with regards to the situation, in which he claims Walworth “misunderstands” the festival’s “policies regarding international artists”:
SXSW has been vocal in its opposition to President Trump’s Travel Ban and is working hard to build a coalition of attorneys to assist artists with issues at U.S. ports of entry during the event. We have artists from 62 countries from around the world performing and have always supported our international music community. We have never reported international showcasing artists to immigration authorities.
We were sorry to learn that one of our invited performers chose to cancel his performance at this year’s SXSW Music Festival due to a misunderstanding of our policies regarding international artists.
We understand that given the current political climate surrounding immigration, the language that was published seems strong. Violating U.S. immigration law has always carried potentially severe consequences, and we would be remiss not to warn our participating acts of the likely repercussions.
Language governing SXSW’s ability to protect a showcase has been in the artist Performance Agreement for many years. It is, and always was intended to be, a safeguard to provide SXSW with a means to respond to an act that does something truly egregious, such as disobeying our rules about pyrotechnics on stage, starting a brawl in a club, or causing serious safety issues.
The SXSW Performance Agreement states:
If SXSW determines, in its sole discretion, that Artist or its representatives have acted in ways that adversely affect the viability of Artist’s official SXSW showcase, the following actions are available to SXSW:
○ Artist will be removed from their official SXSW showcase and, at SXSW’s sole option, replaced.
○ Any hotels booked via SXSW Housing will be canceled.
○ Artist’s credentials will be canceled.
○ SXSW will notify the appropriate U.S. immigration authorities of the above actions.
We hope never to be put in the position to act on this. Indeed, we spend a great deal of time communicating with international artists concerning numerous issues, including how to avoid issues at U.S. ports of entry.
Moreover, there is language in the Performance Agreement which is included to inform foreign artists that the U.S. immigration authorities have mechanisms to create trouble for artists who ignore U.S. immigration laws. For example, those acts coming to SXSW to perform without a work visa are limited, by U.S. immigration law, to performing their showcase event only. If an artist wishes to perform elsewhere, they will require a work visa.
As such, both to protect SXSW and the interests of all the participating artists, we long ago added this language to our Performance Agreement:
1.4. Foreign Artists entering the country through the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), B visa or any non-work visa may not perform at any public or unofficial shows, DAY OR NIGHT, in Austin from March 10-19, 2017. Accepting and performing at unofficial events (including unofficial events aside from SXSW Music dates during their visit to the United States) may result in immediate deportation, revoked passport and denied entry by US Customs Border Patrol at US ports of entry. For more information, please visit these pages:
1.4.1.(B Visa / ESTA) http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/business.html
1.4.2.(Work Visas) http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/en/employment/temporary.html
1.4.3.SXSW general visa FAQ: http://www.sxsw.com/travel/visa-faq
According to the Austin Chronicle, Swenson also claimed the image of the contract that Walworth uploaded to Twitter were “two different parts of the agreement cut and pasted together in a way that is misleading and out of context.” Walworth has since uploaded a video to Twitter in which they scroll through the contract on their phone in order to prove the contract was not re-arranged. Find that, and the rest of Told Slant’s tweets below:
the managing director of sxsw accused me of pasting together two parts of the contract to make it sound worse than it is. Here’s a video: pic.twitter.com/wDaCBiCDBx
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
After looking through this contract sent to me by sxsw I have decided to cancel Told Slant’s performance at the festival pic.twitter.com/rI2Xv0duJl
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 I’m not interested in aligning myself with an institution that interacts with immigration authorities as a means of…
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 …controlling where art is shared and performed, and who makes money off of it.
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 this festival uses an imperialist model and prioritizes centralizing and packaging culture over communities & people’s safety
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 it’s no secret that sxsw has played a huge role in the process austin’s rapid gentrification. the whole festival exists…
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 …to the detriment of working class people & people of color in Austin. that they’re willing to threaten deportation…
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 is enough evidence for me that they don’t care about anyone including the artists that lend them their legitimacy
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 when we allow our alignment with institutions like this to be our metric for success as artists we are seriously failing
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 I’d like to add that all artists received this contract. It’s the standard sxsw official showcase contract. did y’all read it?
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@queerwhosneers I bet. it’s totally fucked!
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 art friends: we don’t need to offer up our work in service to sxsw or any larger institution. we need to set up alternatives
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
@Felixixix666 I’d like to urge everyone I’m close with to talk and think about this. Also it would be great if we all bailed on this at once
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
Can our first step toward coalition as artists with radical politics be to cancel all our official showcases at sxsw? I’m serious just do it
— Told Slant (@Felixixix666) March 2, 2017
if ur playing/going/writing about #sxsw plz dm me. i need yr help with a petition against their threats against international artists.
— Victoria Ruiz (@no_war_on_syria) March 2, 2017
doing SXSW paperwork rn–they threaten 2 “immediately deport” any international artist who plays an “unofficial” show pic.twitter.com/JrjrBVURhM
— Joey L DeFrancesco (@JoeyQuits) October 3, 2015
Recent Comments