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Welcome to our 25th Newsletter!
It’s only March, but we’re already bursting with news! Our community has flourished, gaining more recognition and respect in the industry. It’s great to look back at what we have all achieved together.
Let’s take a recap over the past couple of months and see what is yet to come for 2024! |
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| We truly appreciate our members for taking the time to send us postcards and update us on their activities! 💌 You can send us a postcard via email or you can post it in our private Facebook Group! |
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| This January we received a very special postcard from Ingrid Stroom who summarises beautifully what WILM is all about 🥰 |
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Ingrid writes: “There are many things in life I thought I’d never be and one is being a calendar girl but here I am – Miss January 2024 in Women In Live Music calendar 😄🌟what a way to start the year!
I’m so glad that there are organisations like WILM working on highlighting the unrepresented groups in the music sector. And what makes me even more happy about it is that they are doing it by showcasing the ones who are making the change happen instead of pointing out the sad ratio statistics of men vs women and saying how the worst people on the planet are white middle-aged hetero men. Yes, I too have been mistreated by them, but during my career I have also experienced more respect and encouragement from men than I have from several women in the industry, who’ve been jealous of other women succeeding. So maybe instead of constantly painting pictures of the beast, we should instead show more often what an ally looks like.There’s way too much negativity around us anyway on a daily basis. Hence I find it more important than ever to highlight the ones who are doing good and bring them out as a positive example. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean we shouldn’t talk about negatives. I just wish we’d talk about the good more often – lead the way by showing how to be good, inspire through positivity – be good, do good. Guess we might all be surprised how many exceptional people there are out there if we’d only look 💕
So to sum up: “In a world where you can choose to be anything… Be kind.” ✨ |
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Attention – We are trying to map out where the women in the industry are – Please take part in our survey!
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We need some data on how many we are and where we are all located 🌍
This will help us in our work to achieve a more sustainable diverse crew!
So whether you are a newcomer, a veteran or have even left the industry we would appreciate it if you would please fill in this survey. It takes less than 30 sec!
Feel free to share it within your network!
NB: If you have a couple of extra minutes, please fill in part 2 on Wellbeing in the same survey. |
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What we’ve been up to since our last newsletter:
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WILMAwards, December – London, UK
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WILMA 2023 Winner, Make Up Artist / Stylist for Hollywood Vampires, Emily Jade Elliott
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The WILMAwards was once again a great success, with so many wonderful people in attendance at our SOLD OUT ceremony at the Rose Shure Experience Centre in London!
This year we had hundreds of names in 35 categories, all the way from Artist Liaison to Venue Managers and 12,488 people went to vote for the candidates from all across Europe!
DJ Laurina spun some fantastic tunes to keep the festive vibe going between activities and we played our new and updated Bullsh*t Bingo and Crew Quiz.
More than anything though, it was so exciting to finally be able to reveal what everyone had been waiting for – this years’ winners! |
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Our host Helena King with Grace Chapman from PRG presenting the winner of the Upcoming Crew: Amy Brock – UK
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| Not only did we get to celebrate all the amazing women behind the scenes we also raised money for Musicians Defend Ukraine with an auction of Katie Frost’s print, a copy of the Touring and Mental Health Manual and a pair of Shure noise cancelling headphones. |
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| A huge great Thank You to our sponsors of the WILMA. We couldn’t have done it without you! |
| And here they are! The Winners of the WILMAwards 2023! |
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Skiing Trip, January – Romme, Sweden
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We had a wonderful time on the slopes in Sweden earlier this year during our annual WILM Ski trip ⛷️
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Happy Skiers Cora and Lyliss, enjoying the sun at the top of the mountain 🏔️
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Amazing weather, yoga, sauna, great vegan food and even greater company! You can already now mark the dates for our 2025 trip: Jan.5th -9th!
We will share a cabin or two depending on how many we are.
Never skied before?! No worries – there is both a ski school as well as possibilities for cross-country skiing. |
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ISE, January – Barcelona, Spain
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Audio micro workshop at Allen & Heath
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| We had such an amazing week, we held several workshops and networking sessions collaborating with Shure, Allen & Heath, MA Lighting, Vectorworks, Women in Lighting and more, which gave us such a great opportunity to showcase some fantastic equipment as well as meeting up with so many of our colleagues and friends from all over the world. |
| As if that wasn’t enough, our own CEO Malle Kaas took part in a ‘Wellness in the workplace’ panel talk hosted by Avixa and Malle shared some great insights on keeping up with your mental wellbeing on and off the road. |
| Our WILMAmbassador Ayrton hosted with WILM and Women in lighting the ‘Pink Hour’ – a network session for women & friends in the event industry, and the cherry on top at ISE was our famous Diversity Bingo at Shure’s booth, where so many people had a blast and we had three fantastic winners in total! |
| Thank you ISE and see you all next year in Barcelona! |
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Left: Shure Diversity Bingo Winners: Eva, Mercedes & Esther
Right: ‘Wellness in the workplace’- panel talk @ Avixa Xchange Live
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Music Industry Careers Fest, February – Liverpool, UK
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Thank you to our excellent role models : Anna Ward, Ema Gazdik & Lucia Matusikova from WILM.
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| In February three lovely WILM Representatives headed to Liverpool to visit the iconic Philharmonic Hall to help introduce young people to all the possibilities backstage. The Careers Fest was hosted by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic who had been so kind to invite WILM along 🎻 |
As Anna happens to work for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, she was indeed in the right place to talk about her career as event truck driver 🚛
And this is what she had to say about spending the day in Liverpool for WILM:
“Sunday saw me as Volunteer Rep for Women in Live Music Working the stall with two WILM colleagues n- Lucia and Ema, at the Music Industry Careers Fair.
I think we managed to lift the veil on how it all happens, behind the stage. Giving good insight to the kids attending (and their parents) as to how we put bands and orchestras on stage and get them ‘show ready’ and how we get them all from A to B.
Thank you to the RPO for their continued support in my endeavours and for getting fully behind me and supporting me this past weekend. And thank you to WILM for trusting me to spread the word, and the love!”
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Production Futures ON TOUR, February – West Mids, UK
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WILM was delighted to once again be invited to Production Futures, an event aimed at inspiring the next generation of live event industry professionals and introducing them to the companies and organisations out there.
Emily Darlington headed up to Fly By Nite Rehearsal studios to represent WILM and did an amazing job.
Thankyou to Emily and Production Futures! |
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Emily Darlington at our WILM stand at FBN Studios
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Walk & Talk with The 1975 – February, UK
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Left: WILM Rigger of the year 2023, Hillary Taylor Kench spoke about the rigging
Right: Francois Pare explains monitors side of stage
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For the third time now we have been very lucky to be invited to host “Walk & Talks” with a band whose production keeps getting more and more interesting!
In fact we hosted, not one but FOUR of these events with The 1975 throughout the UK which saw our members getting a behind the scenes tour of the production. This included talks with the audio, video and rigging departments, along with key insights into logistics from Production Manager, Josh Barnes and Production Coordinator, Alice Fraser.
We just want to say a MASSIVE thank you to Josh and Alice and the rest of The 1975 crew for generously giving up their time to host these events with us.
WILM, alongside 3T members got to peek behind the curtain of one of the most distinctive and captivating productions out there, and had the chance to meet countless inspiring role models who work tirelessly to bring it all together each night. |
| Look out! The london event will be covered in the next edition of TPi magazine 🌟 |
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WILM and TPI came together on this Walk & Talk event in London at the O2
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TPi Awards – February, London, UK
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Although not a WILM event we think the TPi Awards deserves a mention in our newsletter this year because it was an incredibly inspiring event with so many WILM members involved!
A record breaking amount of awards went to women this year, in technical, production and logistics categories. We are so very proud!
A huge thanks to TPi Magazine, AVIXA, Audio-Technica and Allen & Heath for having us, and nice to see so many friendly faces. |
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WILM Group photo at the TPi Awards
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…So what’s coming up next?
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Celebrating Women In Audio with Shure, Allen & Heath at the Rose Shure Experience Centre – 19th March, London
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Later this month we will be hosting a full day’s workshop in audio. This will include wireless basics, an introduction to Dante, a WWB7 session and lots of hands on time with Shure’s own wireless systems and Allen & Heath’s dLive consoles.
You can learn more and register here
Interested in learning more about Shure Wireless Workbench? Why not stay another day for their WWB7 Masterclass on March 20th. |
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MA3 Workshop – April 2nd & 3rd, Stockholm, Sweden
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Attendees at our MA workshop last year @ Gobo
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We are delighted to announce that we will repeat the successful event from last year with another MA3 workshop for beginner and advanced users.
This time though, are we expanding with an extra day with sessions on Event IT Networking and an intro to the Zactrack system on Day 1.
Day 2 will be MA3 training with Vectorworks teaching GDTF as part of the class.
Staying in Stockholm overnight? Great! we will be organising an evening event for everyone including guests.Location: GOBO Sweden.We will announce this event with a ticket link shortly via our website and social media!
(NB – be aware this is a two-day event, but can be attended separately) |
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Become a WILMAmbassador
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Do like Ayrton – and become a WILMAmbassador!
WILM is a non-profit organisation working for a sustainable level of more diversity backstage. But we can’t do it without the support from all of you out there: Festivals, Artists and other stakeholders in the live music industry.
Please get in touch with us if you or your company wishes to become a WILMAmbassador: info@womeninlivemusic.eu |
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That’s all for now! But we have got much more in the pipeline, so stay tuned!
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The WILM Team
(Malle, Hannah, Olive, Huld & Valerie) |
Women In Live Music is a non profit organisation and we highly appreciate any donations in order for us to continue our work for minorities backstage. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you would like to make a donation. |
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