45 global festivals, conferences, pledge to tackle gender equality: 50/50 representation by 2022

Forty five global festivals and conferences have pledged to tackle gender inequality, part of the UK-based PRS For Music Foundation’s Keychange initiative.

Their aim is to achieve or maintain a 50:50 female/male balance by 2022.

The 45 include Canadian Music Week, Liverpool Sound City; Manchester Jazz Festival; Eurosonic Noorderslag; Focus Wales; and BBC Music Introducing Stages.

Founding festivals of Keychange were Reeperbahn Festival (Germany); The Great Escape (UK); BIME (Spain); Iceland Airwaves; Way Out West (Sweden); Musikcentrum Sweden; Tallinn Music Week (Estonia); and MUTEK (Canada).

Vanessa Reed, CEO of PRS Foundation, said: “We support diverse talent across every programme we run at PRS Foundation.

“40% of our grantees in 2017 were from a BAME (Black, Asian Minority Ethnic) background and 53% featured female artists.

“Our focus on gender equality in 2018 aligns with the centenary for some women being given the vote in the UK.

“100 years on, the push for gender parity across society continues and with increased public awareness of inequalities across the creative industries we have an opportunity to respond and commit to tangible change in music.”

Reeperbahn Festival founding partner Alex Schulz stated: “Reeperbahn Festival is proud to be a founding Keychange partner because we recognise the barriers that women are facing in the music industry and we know that our festival stages aren’t as balanced as we would like them to be.”

The concept of Keychange started over a year ago.

PRS For Music’s argument is that if technology has disrupted the music industry in virtually every aspect, why has there been no disruption in gender imbalance?

Its data found that females only make up 16% of UK songwriters, and the UK Music Diversity Survey disclosing women hold only 30% of senior executive roles in the UK music industry.

Last year Keychange expanded to Europe, with seven festivals (all run by men wanting to make a change) and co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

60 female artists and innovators were chosen to empower women by transforming the music industry, to showcase, collaborate and test new business and creative ideas.

They included UK DJ and broadcaster Jamz Supernova, Swedish producers Vaz, Iceland’s Airplane and Spaceship,

Estonian artist, mixer/producer manager Thea Lillepalu, Germany’s rising indie stars Gurr and UK’s Suzy Wu

This number will continue to grow until March 2019.

At the packed launch at Reeperbahn Festival, Shirley Manson (Garbage), Emily Haines (Metric) Nadine Shah (emerging UK artist) and Tony Visconti (producer) all gave their support for Keychange’s goals and activities.

Manson spoke about the importance of women having role models at all stages of their career, and talked about how inspirational 72-year-old Deborah Harry was when Garbage had toured with Blondie.

Emily Haines talked about the importance of having female support across the span of the music industry.

“We need more women in the workforce as well as more female artists on stage if we want to get to the heart of the problem.”

Yesterday at the announcement of the 45 international festivals and conferences , PRS Foundation’s Vanessa Reed noted, “The Keychange network of female artists and industry professionals and the festival partners’ idea of establishing a collective pledge will significantly accelerate change.

“I hope that this will be the start of a more balanced industry which will result in benefits for everyone.”

In the meantime, initiatives to help reach 50/50 by 2022 include a three year program of free recording studio time for females or female-fronted acts, those which encourage more collaboration between female artists; getting more female artists and managers to trade events as SXSW; and providing work experience, apprenticeships and training in tech, production and other backstage roles.

Backed by an innovation fund to help test new projects and ideas, Keychange will culminate with a final event in Brussels at the European Parliament in 2019, at which Keychange partners will present a manifesto for change.