Musician Unions Organized A Fair Pay at SXSW Protest at the Penske Media Corporation Offices in New York

On Wednesday, May 31 The Fair Pay at SXSW Coalition held a rally at the offices New York offices of the owners of SXSW demanding fair pay for artists performing at the SXSW festival. Among the organized groups present at Penske Media HQ on 5th Ave were the United Musicians and Allied Workers, Music Workers Alliance, Bandcamp United OPEIU Local 1010, Secretly Group Union OPEIU Local 174, National Writers Union, NYC-DSA, and New York Working Families Party.

United Musicians and Allied Workers shared that SXSW promised to reconsider artist compensation following their protests in Austin this March, But the festival still hasn’t offered a single dollar more and continues to ignore requests for meetings. The SXSW brings in hundreds of millions each year but pays artists $250 per band and that price hasn’t increased in over 10 years.Penske owns a number of publications including Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and many other media properties.