SXSW Festival Rejects the U.S. Army

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A performance at SXSW in 2023. Photo by Patrick Quiring courtesy SXSW.

If, as Andrew Breitbart used to say, politics is downstream from culture, the most significant news of the week may not relate to tonight’s presidential debate but rather may be the announcement by the Austin, Texas, SXSW music and tech festival that it will refuse sponsorship from the U.S. Army for the March 2025 festival.

“After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model. As a result, the US Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of SXSW 2025,” a statement posted to the SXSW website says.

An article in Rolling Stone, which has common ownership with SXSW by Penske Media Corporation, links the decision to musician protests:

In March, acts like Kneecap, Scowl, Squirrel Flower, Eliza McLamb, Shalom, and Mamalarky all withdrew from SXSW due to the fest being in part sponsored by the U.S. Army. “I am pulling out specifically because of the fact that SXSW is platforming defense contractors including Raytheon subsidiaries as well as the US Army, a main sponsor of the festival,” Squirrel Flower’s Ella Williams wrote on Instagram at the time.

Wikipedia says Williams, 27, grew up in Arlington, Massachusetts, and attended Grinnell College. 

A retired admiral who was the supreme allied commander of NATO, James Stavridis, criticized the decision. “Short-sighted and foolish move by @SXSW. You can’t be a serious tech festival without including defense. DoD invented the internet, much of space tech, nuclear power, a thousand other tech innovations,” Stavridis, who is vice chair of The Carlyle Group, said in a social media post.

This is such an amazing and classic example of how the people who hate Israel also hate America. It’s not Israeli government sponsorship the festival is rejecting, which would be bad enough; it’s the U.S. Army. That’s the U.S. Army that is protecting America and our allies from dangerous enemies, and defending freedom and democracy, around the world. That’s the Army Army that is an engine of opportunity and upward mobility for so many soldiers and military families or all backgrounds. The Army that is protecting these musicians and the city of Austin Texas from being invaded and taken over by civilizations and societies that have far less tolerant views.

This is a real test for all the big tech, finance, and media companies whose presence helps support SXSW. If SXSW won’t take the Army’s money, or RTX’s money, will Apple, Meta, the New York Times, Disney, NPR, Goldman Sachs, and Microsoft still show up in force? Or will they say, justifiably, that SXSW is free to dishonor the U.S. military and our defense industrial base, but we’re going to choose to take our own marketing dollars and mindshare elsewhere, to institutions that aren’t hostile to American values? It’s a watershed moment.