Digiday is at SXSW giving you the latest industry news out of the festival at Austin, Texas. More from the series →
With each year that goes by, it seems SXSW gets just a little more corporate. All the more to rally against! Here are four things people are protesting in Bat City this year.
Brands not paying bands to play at events
McDonald’s felt the heat of the fryer when it asked a musical duo, Ex Cop, to play at its event in Austin for exposure (i.e., “unpaid”). Ex Cop fought back with a Facebook post about the offer: “It is a horrifying and gross reality when one sees the true nature of corporations and their pathetic attempts to achieve relevance with millennials,” the duo wrote.
McDonald’s backtracked a few days later, saying they would pay performers after all. But there’s plenty of strong pro-musician sentiment.
Compensate Musicians Fairly #FairPay4Music https://t.co/vzj3DX4wbq via @wordpressdotcom Really, @mcdonalds, you can’t afford a couple bucks?
— Amy Conley (@amidee01) March 6, 2015
Robots
A group of University of Texas at Austin students, killing time before Spring Break apparently, staged a protest outside the Convention Center Saturday against artificial intelligence.
Humans are the future. Interesting protest going on outside the convention centre at #sxsw. #AI pic.twitter.com/aDHIe0t272 — Rachel Arthur (@rachel_arthur) March 14, 2015
“Brand Israel” events
SXSW is hosting a series of sessions this year from Israel, such as “Israel: Small country, Big ideas,” and some activists contend that this is an implicit endorsement of Israeli actions in Gaza.
We are protesting at #SXSW2015 @US_Campaign @jvplive #jvp2015 #NoHipsterApartheid pic.twitter.com/H32mhBLF5X
— Michael Paul (@mpaul_photos) March 14, 2015
Circumcision
An activist group called “Blood Stained Men and Their Friends” launched an anti-circumcision protest at SXSW Saturday, rallying against what they’re calling “forced infant circumcision.”
@frescolicense protest I came across at #sxsw pic.twitter.com/YpSWvIArNL — Ana Maria Defillo (@adefillo) March 14, 2015
More in Marketing
Hyve Group buys the Possible conference, and will add a meeting element to it in the future
Hyve Group, which owns such events as ShopTalk and FinTech Meetup, has agreed to purchase Beyond Ordinary Events, the organizing body behind Possible.
Agencies and marketers point to TikTok in the running to win ‘first real social Olympics’
The video platform is a crucial part of paid social plans this summer, say advertisers and agency execs.
Where Kamala Harris and Donald Trump stand on big tech issues
The next U.S. president is going to have a tough job of reining in social media companies’ dominance and power enough to satisfy lawmakers and users, while still encouraging free speech, privacy and innovation.