The Sónar Boycott Shows Festivals Can’t Ignore Their Investors Anymore
This year, Sónar was one of many festivals hit by a global boycott over corporate ties to Israeli arms. As pressure mounted, artists, fans and staff were left to weigh a difficult choice: boycott or show up.
The past weekend’s edition of the Barcelona festival unfolded under intense scrutiny. Over 80 artists and cultural workers — including past and present participants — publicly supported a call by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) to withdraw from the festival, citing its ownership by Superstruct Entertainment, whose parent company KKR invests in Israeli military and surveillance industries.
When Sónar's links to KKR became publicised, many felt disbelief and anger, from global artistic community to locals in the festival's home city, Barcelona, which is known for its liberal stance and solidarity with Palestine. Even Spain’s Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, publicly stated that KKR is “not welcome in Spain". In June, Barcelona City Council cut ties with Tel Aviv, breaking all institutional relations with the current Israeli government.
The boycott, grounded in the global BDS movement, laid out clear demands to Sónar's organisers: distance itself from KKR’s complicit investments, drop BDS‑priority sponsors, adopt ethical programming aligned with Palestinian‑led guidelines and pressure its venue, Fira, to refuse Israeli government and arms manufacturers.
In response, Sónar issued muted public statements and made some visible adjustments — including dropping Coca-Cola and McDonald’s from its 2025 sponsor list, both of which have faced global boycott calls over their operations in Israel. However, PACBI and boycotting artists criticised the actions as insufficient, delayed and strategically vague — especially when compared to other Superstruct-owned festivals like Mighty Hoopla, which issued stronger and swifter statements.
More than 50 artists pulled out of the festival — including Arca, Sama' Abdulhadi and Heith — as part of the boycott, including Danish-Uruguayan dj g2g, who blends Latin club rhythms with an experimental twist. “I pulled out because I can't stand on a stage that puts money back into the war machine,” they say. “Palestinians are being killed, displaced, starved every single day, and the situation is only getting worse. Not actively contributing to that suffering is the very minimum of what I can do.”
“I pulled out because I can't stand on a stage that puts money back into the war machine”
Meanwhile, dj g2g also recognises that every artist has had to make complex and difficult decisions about showing up. “I understand the privileges that allow me to boycott these stages, and I support those who recognise the problems of these institutions but can't afford to remove themselves from the situation,” they say. “We can only do what we're able to do.”
While artists like dj g2g withdrew completely, others who equally condoned Sonar’s ties with KKR decided to stay involved. For example, Colombian artist Mariana Pachón who was booked to install an accessibility-focused art installation for audiences with diverse sensory needs. For her, the decision to attend was a difficult one.
“The only reason I didn’t boycott was because I’d already been working on the piece, and there are six of us,” she explained—the piece was developed with alumni from BAU’s Master in Audiovisual Innovation and Interactive Environments. “I thought it would be powerful to do something from the inside.”
Her way of doing that was to integrate a public statement into her installation Sensitive Interfaces, which read: ‘AGAINST GENOCIDE AND AGAINST OCCUPATION #FREEPALESTINE’ (full statement in Spanish below).
“Wearing this wristband is really problematic to me,” Mariana said. “It feels weird — I’m having fun here, but at what cost?”
“I don’t see anything here about Palestine,” she adds, referring to the messaging about the boycott or Gaza at the festival itself. While Sónar encouraged artists and attendees to express their political views — and many, like DJ and producer Sarra Wild, did so visibly during their sets — Mariana still felt the lack of vocal support from the organisers was a missed opportunity: “Just address the situation and own it.”
Sónar claim to take the boycott demands seriously. Alongside cutting sponsors and issuing public statements, they hosted a discussion at Sonar+D — the festival’s parallel conference exploring the intersection of creativity, technology and societal change — on the role of culture in conflict — with a focus on Gaza and the corporatisation of cultural spaces.
“We’ve always let the lineup speak for us,” says Andrea Faroppa Cabrera, Head of Sónar+D. “We weren’t used to speaking in our own voice — but we’re learning to now.”
Andrea described the weeks leading up to Sónar as emotionally intense.
“The amount of harassment we received online—it was horrible, and it felt so unfair."
“The amount of harassment we received online — I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” she says. “It was horrible, and it felt so unfair. But we also never lost sight of what’s truly horrific — the genocide being carried out in Gaza.”
On their website, Sónar emphasise that none of its ticket revenue or festival funds directly support KKR, implying a degree of financial separation from its parent company.
“I am disappointed in their public statement, it was super vague,” says dj g2g. “Saying they’re not sending a single euro to KKR might be technically true, but the money still flows upward because we let Sónar boost the value of KKR’s portfolio by staying complicit.”
Mariana Pachón echoed the frustration. “The most powerful thing they could have done was cancel the festival. Saying they don’t agree with KKR just feels like a way to save themselves.”
Still, dj g2g credited the Sónar team for how they handled the conversations around their withdrawal. “They had multiple conversations with me about pulling out,” they said. “They understood why I was doing it and didn’t try to coerce me into reconsidering.”
While the Sónar team expressed understanding for the boycott, they felt the public response was unfair. “Boycotts are a valid form of protest — one hundred percent,” says Andrea. “But it got to a point where the anger felt misplaced. We can’t solve capitalism by ourselves.”
Yet, judging from artist reactions and the wider community at large, the expectation is not on festivals to solve capitalism, but to stop hiding behind it as an excuse.
The boycott marks a turning point for the live music industry: a demand for accountable action that includes cutting financial ties with arms investors like KKR. As one of the most visible responses to Gaza in the global festival circuit, this moment could redefine how cultural institutions are held to account.
Sónar is far from the only festival caught in the contradictions of funding, ethics and creative freedom — but its stature makes its choices significant.
And as cultural spaces with global reach, festivals shape more than line-ups — they shape what feels possible.
"It’s about imagining something better. Something rooted in care, in justice, in community.”
“With everyone starting to be more critical,” says dj g2g, “I think many festivals will try to clean up their business — which would be a good thing. It’s about imagining something better. Something rooted in care, in justice, in community.”