SXSW, which began as a music festival in Austin, Texas, in 1987, has expanded to a two-week event that now features three tracks of programming: music, film and interactive. Penske, which owns publications like Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter and events like the Golden Globes, first invested in the festival in 2021. At the time, it bought 50 percent of the company with a partner, MRC. Penske took control of the festival two years ago by buying another 1 percent.
Many of the people laid off in the past week had been with the festival for decades, including Lillian Park, the company’s head of communication, who had been employed by SXSW since 1988. “Farewell SX,” Ms. Park wrote on her LinkedIn profile. “I’m moving to Scotland to hang out with the sheepies.”
Mr. Forrest joined SXSW in 1989, just two years after it began, as the festival’s first paid employee. He ran SXSW Interactive from 1994 to 2017. He took on the co-president role in 2022. In 2024, he was named the sole president. Mr. Forrest was widely admired inside the organization. He worked without a salary during the pandemic to help keep others employed. Last year, he took a pay cut to save additional jobs.
As part of the reorganization, Greg Rosenbaum, the co-founder and vice president of SXSW EDU, an event focused on education, has been elevated to head of programming for the entire festival; Peter Lewis, chief partnerships officer, has been promoted to lead partnerships and strategy; and Brian Hobbs, a SXSW director, is now vice president of the music festival.
Like many other festivals, SXSW has not been able to return its profit margins to prepandemic levels, said Nick Barbaro, a co-founder of the festival and a board member. He added that new events in London this summer and Sydney, Australia, which started two years ago, had improved the bottom line for the organization.