Australian Music Week team sign international gender parity agreement

On the final day of the conference in Sydney, the Australian Music Week team has made a pledge to the international Keynote Agreement.

The global campaign encourages festivals and industry events to commit to programming a 50/50 gender balance across their lineups by 2022.

The initiative has attracted local signees such as Beyond The Valley as well as international events like Canadian Music Week, England’s Bestival and over 100 more.

“Heaps of great awareness has been raised around the lack of diversity and gender imbalance in our music community world-wide. You can feel the momentum and possibility of real change in the air,” says Australian Music Week director Geoff Trio.

“Signing the Keychange Agreement is a positive step forward in showing Australian Music Week’s commitment to changing the state of play for women in our industry.

“We have work to do.”

Keychange’s founder and CEO Vanessa Reed has praised the conference’s commitment to the agreement.

“It’s important that festivals like Australian Music Week recognise and champion talent from all genders and backgrounds because they showcase hundreds of emerging artists and they’re playing a crucial role in defining the national and international acts of the future,” Reed said.

“This is a huge responsibility and it’s really encouraging that more and more events like Australian Music Week are taking this very seriously and leading the way.”