Britain's PRS Foundation and the European Union's Creative Europe program announced progress and plans for the international Keychange initiative on behalf of women's equality in the music industry, including a pledge to commit to 50/50 gender equality for acts and speakers at festivals and conferences by 2022.
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Artist ambassadors for the campaign include multiple GRAMMY winner Imogen Heap and seven-time nominee Shirley Manson of Garbage fame.
A total of 45 music festivals have taken the Keychange pledge, committing to gender balance. So far two events in the U.S. are represented on the list: A2IM Indie Week and NYC Winter Jazzfest.
"Keychange is promoting a shift that will ultimately be good for our festivals and good for the industry as a whole," said Alex Schulz, founding partner of Hamburg, Germany's Reeperbahn Festival. "I hope that many more festivals will have joined with us by the end of this year, making this a global movement."
Germany, Norway and Scotland already had events that targeted gender parity, notably the Pop-Kultur festival in Berlin, Borealis in Bergen, and the Wide Days conference in Edinburgh.
"We want to set an example, strengthen the promotion of our common objective and inspire other festivals to follow," said Pop-Kultur spokesperson Katja Lucker, "making gender balanced festival lineups become a norm and not an exception."
PRS Foundation CEO Vanessa Reed added, "By bringing together like-minded festivals and conference programmers committed to positive action, Keychange aims to create much needed long-term change in live music and beyond."
Learn more about the initiative via the Keychange.eu website.
