Music festivals including Toronto’s North by North East (NXNE) and New York’s Winter Jazzfest and A2IM Indie Week have promised 50/50 gender parity in their lineups by 2022. Pitchfork reports that 45 festivals from around the world are making the pledge as part of PRS Foundation’s Keychange, a UK program dedicated to advancing women’s careers and achieving gender equality in the music industry.
“Our focus on gender equality in 2018 aligns with the centenary for some women being given the vote in the UK,” stated Vanessa Reed, CEO of PRS Foundation. “One-hundred 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.”
Keychange founding festival partners Reeperbahn Festival (Germany), BIME (Spain), Iceland Airwaves, Way Out West (Sweden), Musikcentrum Sweden, Tallinn Music Week (Estonia), MUTEK (Canada), and The Great Escape (UK) were the first to take the pledge.
Parity in festival lineups is a worthy endeavor, as the gender gap in music is especially wide. A recent study from Dr. Stacy L. Smith found that women represented just 22.4 percent of all performers across the 600 most popular songs from 2012 to 2017. In the same timeframe women accounted for less than 10 percent of the top Grammy nominees.
It’s important to note that, despite the rise of #MeToo and #TimesUp, film festivals have yet to make a similar pledge for gender-balanced lineups. Perhaps as the Keychange initiative gains momentum and garners support, film fests will also join the 50/50 by 2022 fight.
Go to Keychange’s website to find our more about the pledge.
