SXSW shrinks as indie venues contemplate competitiveness

Last week, advocates and leaders in the independent music venue community gathered during South by Southwest to discuss how those thin-margined businesses can improve their chances to stay in business. A few days later, news came out that the festival will shrink by two days next year.

The panel Small Stages, Big Impact: Saving Indie Stages for Artists was organized by the National Independent Venue Association, a group that formed during the Covid-19 pandemic with the help of several Austin music venue owners and operators. During the conversation, NIVA Executive Director Stephen Parker framed how hard it is for small venues to remain competitive in the face of large promoters such as Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

“It is really hard to break through in a space where there is such – some would say a lot of competition, some would say there’s not enough competition, especially when you have major companies with major marketing budgets,” he said. “Independent stages are festivals, venues, promoters, … small businesses and nonprofits that make up most of the live space, even though they’re not in the headlines every day and they don’t have billions of dollars in profits that are announced every quarter.”

Over the years, club owners in Austin have said that SXSW events accounted for 25 percent or more of their annual revenue and provided something of a cushion to survive slow times in extreme winter and summer weather. While the economic impact of last year’s SXSW festival did show a small decline, it has still been seen as a cornerstone of many small hospitality businesses around the city.

On Monday, a spokesperson for SXSW explained that though the festival itself will be shorter, music programming days will increase from six to all seven days.

“A shorter SX gives attendees more of a chance to be here for the entire run. With the Conference, Film & TV Festival, and Music Festival all taking place concurrently over seven days, everyone will have the chance to experience the whole of SXSW,” they said. “This gives music fans an opportunity to enjoy seven nights of showcases instead of the six we’ve had for several years. It also allows us to continue the work the Music Festival programmers have done over the last decade in paring down the numbers of showcasing artists while spreading the shows out over a greater part of the event. This creates a more curated experience for attendees and artists while retaining the discovery that the music festival is known for.”

While the festival’s smaller schedule and restructuring next year to accommodate the coming reconstruction of the Austin Convention Center will likely change how it is embraced by smaller clubs, panelist Andre Perry said those venues need to make a point of providing meaningful experiences and community for their audiences.

“Live performance is about a feeling. I mean, it’s about your soul, it’s about your community. It’s about being in a space, whether it’s like a basement, whether it’s a really nice club, and like actually feeling something and being transformed in a moment, like a spiritual thing,” said Perry, executive director of the Hancher Auditorium and the Office of Performing Arts and Engagement at the University of Iowa.

“When you have folks who work at indie venues, folks who are indie promoters or running festivals, so much of what we’re trying to do is to preserve that essential element, that soulful element of why people are showing up and to make sure that we are a conduit to independent expression of art.”

In recent years, SXSW became the target of protests from live music advocates who said the small stipend paid to performers each year wasn’t in line with cost of living and industry standard rates. While the event had for many years served as a discovery mechanism for the industry, the decreasing importance of the music portion of the festival had made the career advancement prospects less appealing for many musicians.

Fabrice Sergent, managing director of the Bandsintown listings and marketing platform, touted the digital resources that have become essential for bands and venues to capture the attention of audiences and turn them into paying customers.

“It is important for society in this communal moment that we all experience together, to create chill and emotions. … Our goal was not to be tech, to do tech for tech’s sake,” he said. “I’m a tech entrepreneur at the core, but I want tech to serve society. And that purpose is greater than just the purpose of our company, which connects 95 million people, about two-thirds in the U.S., with about 650,000 artists, which created an account on the platform to list their shows, first and foremost to announce their shows, then to communicate with their fans.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license. This story has been edited since publication.

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