Photo: Heather Gallagher | @hg_editorial
When South by Southwest officials announced that they were canceling the festival last week, three Austin residents sprung into action.
Mary Kathryn Paynter, Luke Lashley, and Shelly Lashley created a website called ilostmygig.com overnight, which aims to amplify the voices of displaced workers and connect them with the aid they need.
Paynter, a She Spends reader, spoke with us about what that process was like, how she and other Austin locals are coping, and what people can do to help.
(editor’s note: the following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity)
Tell me about how you started the site.
They announced that SXSW was officially canceled on Friday. What started to happen is that a lot of people I know started posting about what it would mean to them personally. One of them just had emergency appendicitis and posted that she was losing thousands from the cancellation and couldn’t get it back. There was a lot of conversation online about how they, of course, should cancel SXSW. I posted that I understand that it’s important to stay safe but that a lot of small businesses will be hurt by this. One of my friends saw that post. She and her brother said they had the idea to put up a site with Venmo information of the people affected. She connected me with her brother and we built the site that night. It started with listings of just four people. We started sharing it, and now we’re at almost 400 submissions and $2 million reported in lost revenue.
You can go through the site and read everyone’s stories. The idea is that there’s a huge gap in Austin’s economy between the people who enjoy SXSW and the people who make it happen. It’s their job to be behind the scenes, but there’s not a lot of consciousness about it being their livelihood and their economy. It started as just like a website for people to get donations. The messages started coming in and they’re really moving. Posting the messages is bringing more visibility to their situations.
Were you personally affected by the cancellation?
For me, this is the first year that I didn’t have any SXSW-dependent work since 2006 or 2007. It’s kind of a fluke that my client base has evolved and changed. Luke, who created the site with me, owns a film production company. He had retained something like 50 freelancers for work and they’re all out of work now. This is not an issue just for SXSW workers, but for the months after. The festival economy is big here. It’s very seasonal.
Has the state or local government stepped in at all?
No. The Austin Community Foundation has set up a fund, but that’s the closest thing to an official response. The Red River Cultural District has kind of come together and created a 501(c)3 for fundraising and is attempting to rebook shows and keep people in work. They made a commitment to rebook every band that was slated to play throughout the year.
The wage has not meaningfully increased in Austin in the last ten years, yet the cost of living has skyrocketed. And as a state, we have the highest uninsured rate. It’s on par with some third-world countries. It’s really bad because we didn’t expand Medicaid here, so health insurance is incredibly expensive. This only adds that much more of a burden on people.
For me, I think something this all points to is a need for a social safety net. If that existed, how would the situation be different?
If we had a social safety net in Austin, or something to protect workers, things would be so different. For one, there would be a lot more people going out. I think right now it’s created enough of a panic and a scare that people aren’t sure what to do and they’re staying home. It would stimulate the local economy more. People would not be losing their spending money. If we had a social safety net, we could probably have a smaller version of SxSW.
The one good thing about this is that it emphasizes this is what happens when we don’t have paid leave. The city council tried to pass paid leave recently, and there was a big dust up before it eventually was stopped from passing.
I’ve talked a lot with my other friends who are involved in organizing. I think that if you’re going to be a giant corporation and come into Austin and have this experience, you have to offer them some kind of protection. Even if it’s not mandated by the government, you need to do better as a corporation.
For folks who want to start something similar, what advice can you offer?
Our focus is on visibility. In our case, we decided that we don’t want to handle any payment transactions. We just want to function as directly giving people a space to tell their story and to connect them with resources.
I would tell people to not wait. I think the time is really now. It’s crucial to act and meet the moment. The way we set the site up was one way we could provide direct relief to people.
