The musicians who withdrew from SXSW London and chose to stand with Palestinian solidarity at Palestine House

Musicians convened at Palestine House in central London on a Thursday in June for a panel event and live performances. They were meant to have been performing at a major arts and tech festival that week, but plans had to change.

In the weeks, days, and even hours leading up to SXSW London, some 20 artists and three collectives (Radio Flouka, Rat Party, and Shubbak) pulled out of the arts and tech festival that ran at venues across the city from 2-7 June.

Some of these artists and collectives had announced that they would boycott SXSW London after a leaked and verified schedule for the festival revealed that former British Prime Ministers Tony Blair and David Cameron, as well as a NATO representative, would be speaking at the event.

This leak was but the final straw for many of these artists and collectives, some of whom had been wrangling for months with SXSW London for some of its choices of speakers and co-curators for the festival, including companies with financial ties to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, or to the suppression of pro-Palestine solidarity.

Climate of distrust

Dissent over the inaugural SXSW London began in February, when the first collaborations for the festival were announced. Among the co-curators would be Hör Berlin, an online radio station and streaming platform that has had a history of suppressing pro-Palestinian expression by artists.

Concerned artists and collectives due to feature at the festival mobilised to get SXSW London to take Hör off the lineup, but artists say that the festival was slow to act, despite weeks of sustained pressure.

“Hör ended up pulling out after they heard that a number of artists and co-curators are organising to get them disinvited,” Salma El-Shami, a Palestinian manager for artists including Saliah, who had been due to perform at a Shubbak x SXSW showcase before boycotting, told The New Arab.

Artists and collectives also mobilised to have speakers from Palantir and Barclays removed from the festival’s panel discussions. Palantir is a tech company supplying AI products to the Israeli military, while Barclays has financial ties with arms companies that sell weapons to Israel. 

Both were removed from the lineup within a few days last month.

“We asked that they release a statement saying that they had dropped Palantir and Barclays and the reasons why, but they didn’t want to do that,” Rachel Lu, artist name LVRA, told The New Arab.

Days before festival start, a leaked schedule showed Tony Blair, David Cameron, and a representative of NATO would be speaking on panels – unbeknownst to artists and collectives who had poured time and effort into negotiations to have Hör, Barclays and Palantir pulled from the festival, and whose trust in the festival organisers had already taken a knock.

“It was the fact that there was a whole lineup that wasn’t public,” LVRA told The New Arab during the Palestine House event.

“Anybody else could have been on that lineup; the only days highlighted [in the leaked document] were Monday and Tuesday. Who’s on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday? For all I know, when I turn up on Monday, someone could be Donald Trump or Netanyahu by then.

“That they thought it was OK after the conversations that we had to still have this huge unannounced list with controversial speakers and politicians and not flag it to us – that was the point at which I went ‘no, this is irredeemable’.”

The New Arab asked SXSW London why artists had not been told about Tony Blair’s appearance on a panel, and why the information had not been made public.

A spokesperson said: "As one of the world’s largest festivals across tech, music and the creative industries, SXSW London​ respects everyone’s views and positions and aims to create an open, diverse space for debate and discussion.”

“Across the breadth of the festival, with over 800 speakers, we have a broad range of global leaders spanning the technology and cultural industries.

“Their inclusion does not represent an endorsement of any particular position or viewpoint."

LVRA stated that an SXSW representative informed them that Palantir’s participation was a current and highly political issue, whereas Tony Blair’s appearance on a panel about government and AI was not.

“Government and AI seem like a very political issue to me,” they said.

In his statement on his withdrawal from the festival, Sam Akpro drew connections between the unannounced speakers and ongoing war and genocide in Palestine and the wider region.

Akpro said that both Tony Blair and David Cameron were responsible for “immense war crimes in the Middle East” and that NATO members, including the UK, are aiding Israel in its genocide in Gaza.

Palestinian musician Ahmed Eid was set to take part in the festival as part of a Radio Flouka showcase featuring artists of Middle Eastern and North African descent. Both he and the collective withdrew from the festival.

Eid said his decision to boycott was part of a struggle even wider than that of Palestinian liberation.

“The struggle is not only the struggle for Palestinian rights and freedoms. That these festivals decide to invite these groups or individuals that are harmful to the global liberation movement is reason enough for me to say, ‘hey, there is a problem here’,” Ahmed Eid told The New Arab during preparations for the Palestine House event, organised along with management at Berlin-based label KINDA. 

Some artists also pointed to a disconnect between the festival’s music team and programming team, with members of the former stating that they had not been informed about the unannounced speakers.

“It felt like the music team was on our side, but they are working within a system in which they don’t have power,” LVRA said.

“Your music team and your values are completely misaligned with your programming team and their values – that’s a huge conflict within your organisation that you might have come to terms with or are happy to ignore, but artists are definitely not,” they said of SXSW London.

El-Shami said: “We really thought that this would be a new slate for SXSW London, but… these platforms are already propped up to platform these entities and individuals, there’s no reforming them, there’s no fresh start," adding, “They don’t care. It’s all about capital, not music or culture.”

Calls for artists and audiences to boycott festivals partnered with companies that have ties to Israeli occupation and genocide are by no means new, but they have grown in intensity and reception since October 2023.

Last year, the original SXSW, which takes place in Texas, was subject to protests and a boycott due to the festival’s ties with defence contractors and the US military. SXSW cut such ties before the 2025 edition of the festival.

In the UK, a Bands Boycott Barclays campaign saw more than a quarter of performers at last year’s The Great Escape Festival pull out because of its sponsorship by Barclays.

With this year’s summer festival season underway, major events, including Field Day in London and Sonar in Barcelona, are or have been subject to boycotts. Their festival promoter, Superstruct Entertainment, is majority-owned by KKR, a company with investments in Israeli tech companies and US weapons manufacturing.

Last year’s Great Escape was LVRA’s first time boycotting a festival.

Their widely shared statement about their decision to boycott SXSW London highlighted “unethical and inconsistent programming” and an “exploitative business model.”

“I wanted to highlight that this is part of a very complicated structure of exploitation,” they told The New Arab at the Palestine House event.

“We are having to face this awful reality that our art is being used to continually prop up a system of colonialism, oppression, and genocide, and we, in the process, also get exploited.

"I had a sense that people wanted to know where these boycotts were going to take us. Most of us can’t afford to do it continually without the next step of, ‘OK, we agree this is terrible, so what are we going to put our labour towards? ’”

‘We’ve pulled out, now what?’

The event at Palestine House was organised in the wake of artist pullouts, in what Eid described as a “counter-event”.

Some of the artists who pulled out of the festival, including Ahmed Eid, Saliah, and LVRA, participated in a panel discussion on artist solidarity, community-building, care, and alternative frameworks for festivals; Eid and other artists performed afterwards. Funds raised at the event were donated to the Ramallah-based Palestine Music Space, a non-profit community space and music school founded by Eid. 

“There aren’t many platforms where people who are actually resisting in one way or another actually feel safe,” Eid said of the event at Palestine House. 

“The idea of this event is to give a platform to all the artists who have dropped out, to connect them with each other, and to create the feeling that we are in community together.”

It’s a necessary space, as some artists who dealt with SXSW London said the experience had left them feeling isolated and powerless.

“It’s important for us to gather offline and discuss these matters in length. To see each other and share these experiences,” El-Shami said. “Translate these experiences into direct action.”

LVRA stated that since posting their statement, they had received numerous messages from artists with ideas for what happens during and after boycotts, including the creation of alternative spaces and methods of creation.

“It’s really awesome that the conversations that have been had really focus on what’s next. Selfishly, that was what I wanted to know — what was next.”

“To see this conversation rise to the surface has been very inspiring.”

[Cover photo: Photography by Rasha Kotaiche]

Shahla Omar is a freelance journalist based in London. She was previously a staff journalist and news editor at The New Arab

Follow her on X: @shahlasomar