Creativity 'the North Star' of SXSW, but some Austin musicians feel eclipsed during event

AUSTIN (KXAN) – South by Southwest Headquarters, located downtown near the State Capitol, was still recovering from the 2025 event the first week of April.

Its bullpen-style offices, which are situated on the top two floors of a Lavaca Street highrise, were strewn with boxes of merchandise and volunteer apparel that hadn’t yet been moved into storage. 

KXAN sat down with now-former President and Chief Programming Officer Hugh Forrest for an exclusive interview about the annual conference and festival and its changes and controversies over the years. 

This year was Forrest’s first as president, but far from his first being involved. 

Forrest had been at SXSW since it was toddler-aged, joining in 1989, two years after the inaugural event. 

“It was certainly a much different event, then, much different city, then – changed, morphed, pivoted, transitioned, many, many, many times over the 30-plus years,” Forrest said. “But, you know, focus on massive creativity. The power of human creativity is, I think, the North Star that hasn't changed within all those transitions.” 

Forrest is no longer leading SXSW as of late April. Just weeks after we spoke with him, news came out that several leadership changes had been made at SXSW as part of a “broader staff reduction.” 

Why SXSW started

Changes at SXSW throughout the years reflect the fact that its host city has also undergone many changes. 

Though Austin, like SXSW, has morphed and grown over time, at least one thing has remained: its identity is heavily tied to its entertainment and music scene. 

So much so that the capital city of Texas was dubbed the “Live Music Capital of the World” back in the 1980s. 

KXAN reported in 2023 that the term came to be when the Austin Convention and Visitors Council started a campaign highlighting the city’s music scene, putting an ad in Billboard’s July 20, 1985, issue. 

Soon after, ideas began to spark for what would eventually become one of the largest music festivals of its kind – South by Southwest.

It was 1986 when a small group of people started meeting in the offices of the Austin Chronicle to begin a “series of long discussions about the future of entertainment and media,” according to the history section of the SXSW website. 

“A fundamental opinion shared by the group was that the local creative and music communities were as talented as anywhere else on the planet, but were severely limited by a lack of exposure outside of Austin,” the website said. 

They identified music as the “uniting factor,” and “inclusiveness and reaching for new things were core values,” according to the website. 

The group wanted to create an event that would bring the outside world to Austin for a close-up view, per the website. 

Forrest, before departing SXSW, said he’s not sure leadership anticipated that SXSW would boom the way it has, adding that the focus for the first several years was entirely on music, but additions and changes were made over time.  

“I would say that the course and trajectory of South by Southwest has always kind of followed parallel the course and trajectory of Austin,” he said. “In terms of what we focus on, from a content perspective, almost always parallels what's hot and trending in Austin.”

He pointed to the 1994 addition of the film and “multimedia” – now technology – tracks, noting two “young directors coming out of Austin,” Rick Linklater and Robert Rodriguez, and a “kid who was selling computers out of his dorm room” at the University of Texas at Austin: Michael Dell. 

Forrest also said SXSW started adding more health and medical technology content when UT built and opened Dell Medical School in the 2010s. Over the last few years, the conference has featured more transportation-related content, corresponding with changes such as the Tesla Headquarters’ move to the city. 

The current decade is already shaping up to be another that sees major changes for SXSW.

A new era for SXSW 

The most obvious upcoming change for the SXSW festival experience is the expansion and reconstruction of the Austin Convention Center, which is the hub where the conference operates each year. The convention center shut down immediately following SXSW 2025 to prepare for demolition before reconstruction gets underway, which is expected to take about four years. 

Change can’t exist without at least some level of uncertainty and growing pains, but Forrest said he thinks there’s also potential within that. He acknowledged the “elephant in the room” of the convention center’s imminent closure during his opening remarks, kicking off this year’s SXSW. 

“This is going to be a huge challenge for us, but it also presents tremendous opportunities for South by Southwest to reinvent what we do,” Forrest said. “Reinvent is what we have done over the past 30 years. We've transitioned and pivoted, changed, reinvented ourselves. It's what has kept us alive. It has helped us survive. It has helped us thrive.”

Forrest also said South by Southwest has “never been about a building.”

“It's been about people, ideas, connections and opportunities. So while it will be difficult, I'm confident we can pull this off… come back next year, and it will be very different, but very cool, little bit decentralized, reinvented, which is what we do.”

After the leadership change was announced, a spokesperson for SXSW said new leadership holds the same sentiment, and they’re excited to take on the challenge of creating what will essentially be a new SXSW. We reached out to Forrest again following the news of his departure from SXSW but did not hear back. 

Next year’s SXSW will also look different scheduling-wise. The festival announced the day after the 2025 event concluded that its 2026 iteration would be cut down, eliminating a second weekend from the festival. 

SXSW’s ownership change 

While “reinvention” wrought by the convention center’s expansion will impact the next few years of the event, another big one SXSW has undergone happened within the last few years. 

That was a change in ownership. After the COVID-19 pandemic canceled SXSW 2020, Penske Media Corporation stepped in as what SXSW leadership often refers to as a financial “lifeline” through its joint venture between Penske Media Corporation and MRC – P-MRC Holdings, LLC – marking the first time in SXSW history that it had a majority shareholder that wasn’t a festival founder.

Penske Media Corporation is a mass media company headquartered in New York and Los Angeles. It has several subsidiaries in the entertainment, music and publications spaces, including Rolling Stone, Billboard, Deadline, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and She Media.

When the acquisition occurred, leadership teams at both Penske Media and SXSW assured that SXSW management and leadership would remain in charge of the event. 

Several of Penske Media’s subsidiaries are involved with SXSW. In 2024, PMC had 13 brands at SXSW, and in 2025 there were seven. 

At least five of Penske Media’s subsidiaries are registered LLCs in Austin. Those are SheMedia, LLC; The Hollywood Reporter, LLC; PME MUSIC, LLC; Billboard Media, LLC; and Luminate Data, LLC. They all share an address and registered agent, Registered Agent Solutions, Inc., according to records KXAN found through the Texas Comptroller and Texas Secretary of State. Two members of PMC’s leadership team have ties to those business entities as managers, per Secretary of State records. 

Penske Media Corporation is also registered under the same address and registered agent as its subsidiaries listed above.

The Secretary of State does not maintain information on the ownership of an LLC. It only maintains records of an entity’s registered office address and registered agent, which is an entity authorized to receive official legal notices, documents and correspondence on behalf of a business entity, per the SoS website.  

Forrest said PMC’s funding post-COVID was “very, very important,” 

“They've been a great partner in terms of helping us become a little bit more focused in some of our processes, and that's been wonderful to have their involvement,” he said.

“In terms of day-to-day stuff, they are not all that much involved,” Forrest continued. “We do more of that just here, but, again, they have lots of advice, insights. They've got lots of contacts in the media world that are really good for us. They've helped us get talent, bands, films. These have all been good things.”

Since the interview with Forrest took place, he and other long-term SXSW staff members have departed. Along with Forrest, Music Festival VP James Minor and VP of Communications Lillian Park are no longer with SXSW. 

PMC said in an email that the changes were announced at a company Town Hall as “part of succession planning that was already in motion,” and that it also included “additional promotions of deserving and long tenured talent within the organization: Peter Lewis, Greg Rosenbaum and Brian Hobbs.”

A spokesperson for PMC told KXAN the SXSW board elected Jenny Connelly to lead the festival. 

“When Hugh was told he wasn’t going to get the CEO role at SXSW, and would be reporting to her, Hugh made the decision to leave SXSW,” PMC said via email. 

The Austin Business Journal reported Forrest said leaving was "definitely not my decision." 

“I put my heart and soul into this event for more than 35 years, and I was looking forward to leading several more editions,” Forrest said, per ABJ’s reporting. “To this end, I will be rooting big time for the Austin team on the go forward. The city, the country, the world needs the positive energy South by Southwest has traditionally provided and needs it now more than ever.”

Local musicians worry about being overshadowed by SXSW’s changes

Some local musicians said they're concerned more corporate involvement means less emphasis on local creativity. 

“Music definitely used to be a much bigger part, like a much more of a focus,” said Diana Burgess, a lifelong Austinite who’s been playing music at SXSW for about 15 years. “Over the last, I don't know, maybe five years — maybe even longer — it seems like the other aspects of the festival have been kind of like eclipsing that, and just more focus has been put on those.”

Forrest said that while music was the main focus of SXSW in its first few years, the scope has widened to a focus on creativity as a whole. 

“I think the priority is… creativity in all its many forms, whether that be, again, the — the OG of music, whether it be film and TV, whether it be technology, per se, whether it be sports or food or any of the other verticals that we're covering,” he said. “We believe, we celebrate, we cultivate that spirit of creativity.” 

When it comes to the involvement of PMC’s brands and whether they present a challenge to local offerings, Forrest said he doesn’t think they have to be mutually exclusive. 

He said the growth at SXSW has meant that they’re fortunate to have gotten bigger companies involved, but there are also still a lot of small and independent offerings available. 

“So if you want big, we got that. If you want small, if you want up-and-coming, if you want the next big thing, we really specialize in that,” Forrest said. “I don't think having Penske involved has in any way changed that attention, that fact that we are a platform for the next big thing.” 

Some local musicians disagree. 

Burgess’ partner, Curtis McMurtry, is also a lifelong Austinite who’s been performing at SXSW for over a decade. He thinks the focus of SXSW overall has shifted because music is not as lucrative a business as it once was. 

“I think that music makes everyone less money than it used to,” McMurtry said. “So, even festivals like South by Southwest are hesitant to put money into the music side of their festival. I think they see tech as something that's more worth their time.”

Aaron Lack, president of the Austin Federation of Musicians — the local chapter of the American Federation of Musicians of the U.S. and Canada – said he’s seen the effects firsthand. Lack said he’s been trying to reach SXSW leadership about compensation.

“South By has gotten more corporatized in the last five years or so. They'd kind of been moving in that direction anyway, but then they were acquired by a larger media company. So that, in and of itself, is a stumbling block,” to compensation discussions, Lack said. “They just – they don't want to, and they're never going to want to. I mean, no corporation wants to bargain with their workers.”

Forrest said musicians have every right to push for higher pay, but did not say whether he’d had any correspondence with Lack or the AFM. 

On the music festival side of SXSW, Penske Media subsidiaries Rolling Stone and Billboard have quickly taken the main stage. Both brands started hosting music showcases at SXSW within the last five years. Both have become the more sought-after showcases since their inception. 

Rolling Stone started its “Future of Music” showcase in 2023, and Billboard’s “The Stage at SXSW” started in 2022. The showcases typically feature major-name artists. This year’s Future of Music showcase included Benson Boone, Megan Moroney, Ivan Cornejo and Rema, while Billboard’s Stage saw Koe Wetzel, Grupo Frontera and John Summit.

Rolling Stone’s 2024 showcase hosted over 12,500 attendees over four nights. Billboard reported that John Summit’s show drew “one of the biggest crowds ever assembled at downtown Austin’s Moody Amphitheater, with roughly 5,000.”

Spokespeople from both brands said those performers are paid rates set separately from the SXSW musician pay rate. 

Rolling Stone’s publisher Brian Szejka spoke to KXAN during SXSW about its involvement in the festival and what goes into the music showcase. He said Rolling Stone is “acutely aware” of conversations surrounding fair pay. 

“Artists are as important to us as anybody,” he said. “Without them, we would not have much to talk about. We value their time, their talents, and, above all, want this to be something that benefits them for their careers, also grows their star, grows their fandom, and gets them some coverage within Rolling Stone. But we know this is their career.”

What happened to the city-led efforts to increase musician pay at SXSW?

In 2023, there were city-led efforts to increase pay for SXSW performers following the start of United Musicians and Allied Workers' “Fair Pay at SXSW” campaign, which sparked widespread attention. 

That push included a June 2023 two-part recommendation from the city’s Parks and Recreation Department that would change the fest’s access to city-owned venues. That recommendation:

• Asked the Austin City Council to direct the City Manager, Legal Department, and the Parks & Recreation Department to ensure any contract negotiation between the City, PARD and SXSW include provision requiring fair pay for domestic artists performing at City of Austin parks, park facilities and city owned property. 
• Wanted the Austin City Council to require changes to artist pay and compensation by SXSW before waiving any future fees at Vic Mathias Shores, or at other parks, park facilities or city owned facilities

Two months later, the Austin Music Commission voted to approve that recommendation, in front of several musicians who attended the Aug. 7 meeting, holding signs that read, “FAIR PAY AT $x$w, PASS THE PARKS BOARD RECOMMENDATION!” 

There were seven votes in favor, one absent, and two abstaining. Nagavalli Medicharla, chair of the commission, was one of the abstaining votes. 

She said she didn’t feel the city could enact wage standards for a private entity like SXSW, but also believed SXSW brings in more pros than cons for the city. 

“Wage standards for private entities, as I understand, are set by state and federal government, not at the city level. So that was a key reason,” Medicharla explained, adding that the city council gets a lot of recommendations but not every one “gets picked up.” 

Medicharla also implied that the concessions the Parks and Rec Board was trying to leverage in its recommendation were not much compared to the amount of fiscal impact that SXSW brings into the economy. She pointed specifically to the Live Music Fund, which is funded by Hotel Occupancy Taxes. The amount of money collected through those taxes sees a bump during SXSW, according to a document from Austin’s Music Commission that breaks down the month-by-month numbers. 

Medicharla said she chose to abstain because she wanted to approach the matter from an unbiased perspective, since she’s also a musician. 

“The point was not to make a stance against musician pay. That was not the point,” she said, adding that “it was not a vote against the recommendation… I abstained because I didn't, for multiple reasons, think that it was a viable recommendation.”

Austin Kaplan, an employment attorney, said if SXSW operates under the business model of musicians being treated as independent contractors rather than employees, the company can essentially set whatever rate it wants, and its contractors can “take it or leave it.” 

Forrest said SXSW does not treat musicians as employees of the company. 

Council Member Zo Qadri oversees Austin’s District 9, which covers the downtown area that houses much of Austin’s entertainment district as well as the convention center. He was elected to the city council a few months before discussions surrounding musician pay were brought to the dias, but he was one of the sponsors of the city’s ordinance to pass a standard pay rate for musicians performing at city-led events. 

He acknowledged the importance of musicians and creatives in the local community and economy, as well as the positive impact of SXSW. 

“While we need to take care of South by and make sure they excel and succeed… we also need to make sure that our musicians excel and succeed and call Austin home,” Qadri said. 

His office confirmed the City did not take direct action by voting on an item relating to pay specifically for the SXSW musicians. 

However, that same summer, the city council approved a separate resolution establishing the city's standard pay rate for commissioning live music performances. That rate applies to any SXSW performances held on city property or parkland, which addressed the first part of the Parks and Rec Board’s recommendation.

Local musicians and union leadership told KXAN last year they felt that, after some momentum, city-led support had stalled. 

“One thing we can't do is stay stagnant, right?” Qadri said. “There's obviously gonna be things that musicians also are like, ‘hey, that went really well for us, and this didn't. We're still lacking in this thing.'”

“So I think an open line of communication needs to exist for there to be for the benefit of both organizations, right, for the benefit of South By, but also the benefit of the artist,” Qadri said. 

Forrest said the community has “lots of ideas of what South by Southwest should be,” and they “can be vocal about those ideas,” but he believes SXSW is “very attuned” to feedback. 

“I think we're pretty good at that, in terms of listening to the community, trying to react to the community,” he said. “We're probably not as good when the community [we] feel like yells at us,” he laughed. “We’d much rather have productive conversations than shouting conversations. But you know, those conversations have certainly helped us to rethink a lot of the things we do with the Music Fest as well as the film fest, and we've acted accordingly.”

PMC said the 2025 event marked the “highest ever sponsorship revenue in the history of the company and the largest SXSW EDU conference in the brand's history.”

While it's unclear how leadership changes and the change of venue will shape the Austin festival moving forward, it was already well on its way to expanding on what it built in the Live Music Capital. SXSW is launching its first-ever London edition next month, furthering its global impact after starting SXSW Sydney two years ago.