The boss of Norway’s Øyafestivalen has admitted that it was “strange” to find her festival on the receiving end of a boycott campaign led by pro-Palestine groups this year, because “Øya has a proud history of supporting progressive causes” and a clear stance expressing “solidarity with Palestine”.
Campaigners have targeted the event because of its sponsors and the fact it is ultimately owned by private equity firm KKR, which has investments in Israel.
Speaking to IQ, Øya CEO Tonje Kaada says that – while the festival’s organisers share the campaigners’ position on the situation in Gaza – “I believe it should be acceptable to have faith in different approaches to achieve the same goal”.
And that includes allowing artists to use their platform at music festivals, even if that means critiquing the event’s owners or sponsors from the stage. Which Kneecap did at this year’s edition of Øya.
“We’ve always seen Øya as an arena for free speech and we encourage artists to use our stages to express criticism and demand change if they wish to do so”, Kaada continues. “I believe artists have the greatest impact on stage and I think it’s good that we can be the loudspeaker for these voices. Without festivals, the space for expression narrows”.
The festivals sector has been having to navigate two kinds of public criticism in the last couple of years, both relating to the conflict in Gaza, but from different directions.
Some festivals have faced a backslash for having sponsors or owners with connections to Israel. Others have then been criticised for booking bands that are outspoken in their criticism of Israel on-stage. And some festivals face both kinds of criticism at the same time.
Last year Live Nation’s UK festivals came under fire because of a sponsorship deal with Barclays, which has investments in Israel. Similarly, Øya was criticised for its partnership with Norwegian bank DNB, which likewise has Israeli connections.
Øya has also faced criticism because of its owner. It’s part of the festivals group Superstruct, which was acquired by private equity firm KKR last year. Numerous festivals in the group have since come under fire because of the KKR connection, with many artists being pressured to pull out of events.
That prompted Superstruct to put out a statement earlier this year, stressing that KKR is not actively involved in running the company.
“Operationally, Superstruct is independently run, and makes its own decisions based on what is in the best interests of our fans, artists, partners and colleagues”, the statement read, adding, “Festivals are also empowered to make their own commercial decisions to reflect the changing world in which they operate”.
Since then Superstruct has allowed its festivals to put out their own individual and sometimes forthright statements on the situation in Gaza and in support of Palestine, which has generally placated most artists. But not all, with some continuing to boycott and publicly criticise the events.
However, artists like Kneecap and Bob Vylan, who have courted controversy and generated headlines for their on-stage criticism of Israel, have continued to play Superstruct-owned festivals. Perhaps aware that – with some groups calling for them to be axed from all music festival line-ups – if they also started boycotting events themselves they might run out of places to play.
Both have then used those festivals as platforms to continue speaking out on Gaza, while also hitting back at their critics, and, in some cases, the owner of the events.
Bob Vylan played Superstruct-owned Boardmasters this weekend. Under pressure from some fans to boycott the festival, they pledged to donate their fee to Palestinian aid charities. They then used their set to criticise those who said the festival should cut their set, including right wing political party Reform UK.
According to Devon Live, frontman Bobby Vylan told the audience “it was a little bit of a battle to get here”. He added, “You know they didn’t want us here, right? Reform UK didn’t want us here with you. But fuck Reform. Some of your local MPs didn’t want us here. Some Zionist lobby groups didn’t want us here”.
Those people, he insisted, opposed the group’s performance because the punk duo “speak the truth”, and “because we dare to take this stage and say, ‘fuck England and its terrible foreign policy’. Because we dare to say, ‘fuck the Israeli government and the atrocity, and their crimes of genocide that they are committing’, and because we dare to say ‘Free Free Palestine’”.
At Øya, Kneecap thanked the festival for “standing by” the band despite the calls for them to be axed from the bill, and also acknowledged that the event had put out their own statement “calling out the genocide”.
But they did then bring up the KKR situation, with the group’s Mo Chara telling the audience, “it’s a disgrace and a shame that KKR is behind all these festivals. No company who is investing in Israel while they commit war crimes should be investing in and taking part in music festivals”.
