Why is there such a dearth of women at high-level jobs in the live-music sector?

There was much discussion last summer about the paucity of female or female-fronted acts on festival bills. Again and again, you’d find festival line-ups that would look sparse indeed if you removed the male and male-fronted acts. There were reasons cited, of course, but the issue has posed a lot of questions nonetheless about the live music industry’s problem with women.

The problem is not just confined to what happens onstage either. At last week's Eurosonic conference in Groningen, a panel called Male Agents, Female Assistants drew a large audience for a discussion about the dearth of women at high-level positions in the live sector.

The panel was chaired by Julia Gudzent from the Melt festival in Germany. Participants included Norwegian agent Anita Halmøy Wisløff, Polish booker Anna Kopaniarz, UK agency partner Isla Angus, and the head of press for Danish festival Northside, John Fogde.

Experience v potential
Wisløff made the point that many believe women get hired because of experience and men get hired because of potential. The problem is in getting experience if you can't get hired. She also talked about how she didn't get promoted in one instance because the company involved thought it might be seen as being "too groupie".

Often it comes down to a matter of presentation, said Angus. She gave an example of the differences between a male and female interviewee going for the same job. Both may be well capable of doing the job, Angus said, but the male will be far more confident and assertive.

While the obvious way around this might be to start your own business, this doesn’t always suit everyone. “Sometimes women are not brave enough to start something ourselves”, said Kopaniarz, “but this mindset is changing.”

The question about festival line-ups also came up. Fogde says it has much do with the age of festival bookers. “Most of the major festivals in Denmark were founded by men in the early 1970s,” he said, “and they’re still alive with the same mindset”.

In the case of the Northside festival, many of its departments are ran by women. “We were founded in 2010 and it’s different because it would be weird to be any other way,” he said.

Wisløff added that festivals are becoming more aware of the need to change. She talked about how the Øya festival in Oslo increased female acts on its bill from 10 per cent to 35 per cent in a year. Indeed, it was striking in Groningen that the festival itself had so many female and female-fronted acts.

Some solutions were offered, including quotas and accepting invitations to speak at conferences. All agreed that identifying the bias and raising the issue was often an important first step.

Of course, Angus said, gender is not the only area where the live music business needs work. Racial equality is something that also needs to be addressed.