Latest news with #PalestinianSolidarity
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Who really owns the music festival you're heading to this summer?
Anyone who works in the kind of music festivals that don't have billion-dollar entities behind them, will tell you how challenging it is to make things financially sustainable right now. Costs for almost everything a festival needs to run have gone up. Trends in ticket sales are still fluctuating since the pandemic, with big-event experiences sucking up audiences over smaller events. Money needs to be found somewhere, and for years, the experience at many large music festivals is akin to being in a mall where the visual noise of brand 'activations' is as loud as the main stage. We are deep in festival and outdoor concert season. This summer, what that means is asking questions about ownership, sponsorship, and line-ups. A rolling wave of artist and cultural boycotts related to Palestinian solidarity is simultaneously exposing the role of private equity in festivals: who owns what, and who funds what. Some lines of ownership are relatively simple. Coachella, for example, is run by Goldenvoice, which is a branch of AEG Presents, which is the live arm of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which is part of the Anschutz Corporation, which began as an oil well drilling company. The name of Philip Anschutz – the billionaire owner of the entity and son of its founder Fred Anschutz – popped up in the 2017 hearings of the now US Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. According to the New York Times, in 2006 Anschutz successfully lobbied a Colorado senator and the White House in George W Bush's era to nominate Judge Gorsuch to the federal appeals court in Denver. In the 2017 hearings, then-Senator Patrick Leahy noted Anschutz financed uber-conservative groups such as the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation . Rock and roll. READ MORE Other lines of ownership, and where various parent companies invest their money, are more opaque. Currently under fire is Superstruct Entertainment. Superstruct operates in what it calls 'the experiential economy', and owns multiple festivals including the massive Sónar in Barcelona, which it bought in 2024, and the equally large Hungarian festival, Sziget. Last January, Superstruct bought the hugely popular electronic music brand, Boiler Room, from the ticketing platform Dice. It also owns the UK LGBTQ+ festival Mighty Hoopla, and the Dutch electronic music festival DGTL. [ How Live Nation calls the tune for the live music industry Opens in new window ] In June 2024, Superstruct was sold by the private equity firm Providence Equity Partners to another private equity firm, KKR , for €1.3 billion. KKR's portfolio is worth around €620 billion. Its investments include the Israeli data analytics company Optimal+, and the Israeli data centre company Global Technical Realty. In 2019, KKR bought Novaria Group, a manufacturer of aerospace hardware, an acquisition characterised by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute as 'betting big on the US defence industry and aerospace engineered parts are part of that theme'. In 2023, KKR bought Circor International, described as 'one of the world's leading providers of mission critical flow control products and services for the Industrial and Aerospace & Defense markets'. Discontent around the KKR-Superstruct relationship has been brewing for some time. Now artists are taking a stand. The London festival, Field Day, bought by Superstruct in 2023, saw 15 artists pull out due to the KKR links. At the time of writing, 28 artists have pulled out of Sónar. Spain's culture minster, Ernest Urtasun, said that KKR is 'not welcome in Spain' , citing policy that companies with alleged economic interests in illegal settlements in Palestine 'cannot operate normally in the European Union'. Superstruct's sale to KKR was beyond the control of various festivals under this umbrella, and they have said as much. But the lack of autonomy festivals have over whose portfolio they ultimately end up in is a recurring theme. Individual consumers experience the same issue. The difference now is that artists and music fans are becoming more aware of financial flows in the context of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and Palestine solidarity more generally, especially at a moment when artists are core to such activism. This is before we even get into the US antitrust lawsuit concerning Live Nation (long-merged with Ticketmaster), heading to trial next March. Last month, Live Nation added a new figure to its board of directors, Richard Grenell , Donald Trump's special presidential envoy for special missions. In Trump's first term, Grenell was ambassador to Germany, a tenure that led Martin Schultz (the former leader of the Social Democratic Party) to characterise his behaviour as 'not like a diplomat, but like a far-right colonial officer'. [ Occupied Territories Bill: what's in it, how it has changed and what the implications might be Opens in new window ] The consciousness of artists and fans is being raised. This moment is about many things. It's about a younger generation and the artists they admire drawing a line. It's about the claustrophobia of capitalism, a system within which escape from ownership and practices whose values you disagree with often feels stiflingly impossible, rendering consumers inadvertently complicit as their spend downstream filters up to god knows what. It's about the billionaire class. It's about shape-shifting conglomerates, private equity, and their Hungry Hippo approach to gobbling up companies and brands digested in heaving portfolios. But it's also about a new generation querying financial flows and their beneficiaries. It's about the BDS movement becoming more and more mainstreamed. And ultimately, it's about something that has always been the case: big money is rarely clean.
CBC
16-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
1 year on, McMaster says it's completed nearly all commitments made after pro-Palestinian encampment
Student who participated in solidarity protest says the university's efforts are not enough Around $200,000 is now available for Palestinian scholars and students at McMaster University — one of the nine commitments the university made last year following a month-long Palestinian solidarity encampment set up on campus. The funding is earmarked for Palestinians but falls under the university's larger Students At Risk Bursary. Scholars can "submit an expression of interest form anytime," said McMaster spokesperson Wade Hemsworth, but incoming undergraduate students have to apply for the September 2025 intake period by Friday. The scholarship comes nearly a year after McMaster made a series of commitments — on May 24, 2024 — in order to help end a month-long protest on campus, where some students, faculty and community members said the university wasn't doing enough to support Palestinians on campus and overseas, as violence in Gaza continued. Led by McMaster University students, some 75 demonstrators, including students and some faculty members, set up roughly two dozen tents on May 5 on campus. The tents came down weeks later as McMaster made nine commitments, and the university said this week it has now completed nearly all of its commitments. Meanwhile, some participants in the protest say the university has not done enough. Protest lasted close to a month The McMaster encampment protests were among similar demonstrations at post-secondary schools in Canada and the U.S. last year, prompted by Israeli military actions in Gaza. By then, more than 34,735 Palestinians had been killed since October 2023, according to health officials in Gaza. Around 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, were also killed in Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas, according to Israeli tallies. Since then, another 18,000 or so Palestinians have been killed by Israel's ground and air invasion of Gaza, according to its health ministry. The protest last May, led by student groups McMaster Apartheid Divest Coalition and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR), had four demands for the university: disclose its investment in weapons companies and defence contractors, divest from companies with ties to Israel, boycott targets specified by the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement (BDS), and declare that Israel's bombardment of Gaza is "genocide." Some faculty members also supported the encampment, with some speaking on site and others signing open letters of support. In late May, 2024, after a "series of meaningful discussions," according to the university, the on-campus encampment ended. McMaster committed to: Building a plan to include human rights in its international agreement. A meeting, which SPHR and supporting faculty members were to attend, with McMaster's Chief Financial Officer to discuss the university's investment strategy. Disclosing an annual report of all direct investments. Implementing an open process that allows McMaster community members to inquire about their investments. Making $200,000 available from McMaster's Scholars-at-Risk Program and Students-at-Risk Bursary to support qualifying Palestinian students. Extend the contract of their current Palestinian psychotherapist and hire a male Muslim Palestinian psychotherapist. Publishing a series of stories about students "impacted by conflicts and crises around the world," on the university's Daily News site during the 2024/2025 academic year. Image | McMaster encampment Caption: McMaster students and faculty were demanding the university disclose its investment in weapons companies and defence contractors, divest from companies with ties to Israel, boycott targets specified by the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement (BDS), and declare that Israel's bombardment of Gaza is a genocide. (Bobby Hristova/CBC) Open Image in New Tab The university has made progress in its commitments, it says, and Hemsworth said after publishing a series of stories on McMaster's Daily News site, all commitments will have been completed. "The series is scheduled to be published soon," he said in an email earlier this week. Leah McMillan, an undergraduate representative to the university's Board of Governors, refuted the idea that commitments will all be met, and said, for example, McMaster has yet to hire a male Muslim Palestinian psychotherapist, who was wanted for religious reasons. Hemsworth said "best efforts were made" to hire a counsellor with that criteria, but two female Palestinian counsellors are available through their Student Wellness Centre as well as "two recently hired male Muslim counsellors." University not doing enough on divestment: student McMillan also said the actions aren't enough, especially when it comes to divesting from Israeli companies. Last fall, McMaster published a report that listed "all direct investments" up until June 2024, as part of its "commitment to transparency." It then spent four months of consultation on a new set of Principles of Responsible Investment, it said, and received "about 2,600 submissions" on the matter. The principles were approved on April 24. "They do not support divestment but instead prioritize the fiduciary responsibilities of the Board and support the long-term health of our institution," the university said in a statement when approving the new principles. McMillan said the approval came with almost no changes, despite having over 1,400 people, including staff, students and faculty demand divestment from weapons companies and from Israel. The principles' purpose is "not to encourage or advocate for an institutional position on social or geopolitical issues," McMaster President David Farrar said in the statement in April. But McMillan argues that investing in weapons companies "that are enabling the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people" is not politically neutral. "If you are neutral, you are taking the side of the oppressor," they said. McMillan said they tried to propose a separate motion to divest specifically from weapons manufacturers, but it was rejected both from being put on the meeting agenda and later by the university's Investment Pool Committee. McMillan said they continue to be disappointed the university does not use the word "genocide" when describing actions in Gaza. "Again, McMaster has not done that," they said. Group suspended SPHR was suspended in December, according to Hemsworth, "following a disruption at the December meeting of McMaster's Board of Governors." "The agreement signed last spring to end the encampment included a commitment not to disrupt university business," he said. McMillan said the investigation has prevented the club from "doing anything as an organization," since then, which has also placed members of the club in a situation where they're afraid to speak out for fear of SPHR facing more scrutiny. Hemsworth said the university's policy on student groups is "consistently applied in all cases." McMillan said they were speaking out in part this week because SPHR feels like it can't make public statements, they said. McMillan said "seeing violence [in Gaza] escalate every day" has been difficult. They look back on the time a year ago, and the "energy of community and solidarity" that existed in the encampment, and hope that McMaster will do more. "[In class] we talk about decolonization, we talk about genocide studies ... We talk about war crimes and human rights and sustainable development goals," they said. "All of that seems to ring hollow for a lot of students when confronted with McMaster's own complicity in the ongoing genocide."
