We believe in women in live music. - Lets stay tuned, connected and bold.
WHO ARE WE?
Women in Live Music [WILM] is a European platform and
online community for women working backstage in live music;
this includes Sound Engineers, Tour Managers,
Lighting Designers, Riggers, Backliners, Stage Managers,
Stagehands, Truck Drivers and more.
WHY
To this day, women only make up a minor percentage of the
workforce in the music industry. This primarily motivated
the creation of WILM. However no change can be effective
without support from everyone; so we welcome every gender
to join us in our effort to ensure a balanced diversity for the future.
HOW
This website, in addition to our pages on social media,
constitute a starting point in connecting our members.
We interact on social media on a daily basis, where everyone,
regardless of gender is invited to share experiences, pictures,
and tips with other members.
The community then goes beyond, into organising workshops
and meet-ups throughout Europe.
During these events, members can interact, learn and forge
long-lasting friendships with like-minded individuals.
Our events aspire to create a supportive and
inspiring community.
CREWLIST
This list is a tool for bands, booking agencies, and companies
looking for female crew members – whether they are looking for
backliners in France or merch sellers in Germany, our CrewList
aims at facilitating accessibility to qualified women working in
the field.
In addition, the CrewList can also be used for networking and
reaching out to members from other regions, for the simple sake
of meeting, or to ask for guidance while on tour in their
region.
We encourage all women working in the live music industry
to join our CrewList!
University of Hertfordshire Sep ‘08 – Jul ‘11 Achieved 2.1 in BSc Music Technology & Sound Design, including a 1st for Major Project Dissertation. Modules including: Music Business, Audio Electronics, Events Management, Production, Theory and Acoustics.
Master thesis subject: Foley Sample Library
Britannia Row Productions Training Jan – March ‘14. Full-time course with Britannia Row in London, studying Advanced Live Sound Technology.
Live Sound Engineer 2011 – Present. FOH/Monitor Engineer for touring artists. Has experience mixing in all varieties of venues; from 150 cap clubs to arena shows, splitter tours to full production bus tours. Hannah has also worked with Live TV & Radio, assisting artists at The Brit Awards, Rugby World Cup, Sky Sports and Music Cube. She specialises in monitor mixing and RF.
Other qualifications and useful information:
Computer and social media literate.
Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
Established presence within the UK live music scene. Moderator for key industry forums.
Live Sound & Music Production Module Leader, BIMM Institute 2019 – 2022
Head of Sound & Production, The Ned 2017 – 2019
BA (hons) Music Production , BIMM Institute October 2012 – June 2015
Other qualifications and useful information:
BECTU IOSH: Creatives industry safety passport.
Shure Master Class: Wireless Best Practices & Techniques.
d&b audiotechnik: Acoustics, loudspeaker design, workflow, system planning & simulation.
DiGiCo SD Series & Quantum
Experience in operating, configuring and setting-up a diverse range of complex professional sound reinforcement equipment including most modern digital consoles.
Troubleshooting, analysing, and resolving production problems.
Allen & Heath have from the beginning, provided us with consoles and assistance for training purposes, which we highly appreciate.
Rational Acoustics are helping us motivate more women to participate in technical training by offering two scholarships per year for our members in Europe. We are also fortunate that Rational Acoustics are giving members 15% discount on items from their online store. Please, email us at info@womeninlivemusic.eu if you would like a voucher for the discount. (This is for WILM members only).
Shure – Shure were some of the first to put on workshops with us, and an important sponsor for our WILMAwards!
Britannia Row Production Training – Malle (CEO) and Hannah (Co-director) met each other at BRPT in 2014 and are forever grateful for this beautiful place.
And nonetheless, WILM are super grateful for the support BRPT contributes with in order to find and help future female live sound engineers.
d&b Audio are a fantastic company that have been with us from the start offering audio workshops for our members and always being very supportive.
Flight Cases International – Behind the popular WILMAward trophy is the flightcase company Flightcases.dk that are successful in Denmark, Finland & Austria. Flightcases.dk has been creating and sponsoring the legendary trophies for the WILMA’s since 2020. On top of that all WILM members get 20% off all the company’s products by emailing us for a code.
Dirty Rigger – DR have been our friends from the very start and have often sponsored great gear for different WILM events. With them WILM members can get 15% discount by emailing us for a code.
SAFE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
What is the Safe Learning Environment program?
Over the years, WILM has realised the importance for women to have access to a community of like-minded women when working in an industry such as the live music industry, which is heavily male-dominated.
Equally important is for women to have strong female role models, so they feel comfortable and secure in their chosen field. We notice women with a strong support network tend to stay in the industry for longer, than those without.
WILM wish to assist our members with a more secure start in the music industry through our program, where women will have possibilities to gain experience and training from other more experienced women already working in the field.
Simultaneously these women will be introduced to a greater supportive community of colleagues from all over Europe through the activities of WILM.
The vision of this project is to break the existing pattern of women new to the industry feeling intimidated and alone, with the support of a safe learning framework. We particularly want to show young girls that traditionally male-dominated occupations such as Sound Engineering can be natural for them to work in.
The mentioned learning frameworks are achieved by having women employed to teach, and in general present the participants to different female role models in the live music industry.
Why is there a need for this kind of program?
Young girls often do not know who to reach out to if they want to become an active part of the live music industry.
Women make up a very small percentage of the technical working force in the live music industry.
Many women seem to lose confidence when they are trained by men – especially in the technical field.
Many women do not feel that they belong to a community in the industry.
This lack of belonging and support is a reason why many women are dropping out of the music industry after a relatively short time in comparison to their male counterparts.
NB. There is little research that supports the statement above. However, reviews of existing research on gender stereotypes in society indicates that a profession with a major imbalance in gender distribution affects women’s future career choices, including discontinuation.
Research also shows that girls at a young age have a higher tendency to develop self-criticism and are increasingly afraid to underperform, compared to boys.
It is undoubtedly very particular to one’s upbringing, as well as external and internal influences, but it can help explain why young girls do not trust that they will be able to handle certain subjects, and ultimately it can help explain why there are so few women working within technology and engineering today, where you find a clear preponderance of men.
How is the program executed?
By changing the mindset! First of all we wish to change the negative view women have of themselves in this industry. We notice a big number of women putting an exaggerated amount of pressure on themselves from the beginning, or who feel very intimidated from the very start.
Therefore, with a closed circle of women – sometimes even just one-to-one, we wish to introduce a learning environment where mistakes are allowed and where time is granted to start over again. Also where there will be a lot of opportunities for hands-on and practical experiences for each individual.
We have divided our program into four different sections:
Festival: We offer a multi-day workshop for a selected group of women, where they are partly included as volunteers, and also part of a WILM-camp where the participants will be introduced to a different theme every day, such as sound, lights, production, etc.
Venue: We offer one-to-one training on selected gigs in either production or tech, followed up by the proposal for a mentorship.
Workshop: We continually offer “Intro to” workshops with the introduction to different fields in production or tech. These workshops are all over Europe, for women by women.
Camp: In association with Bang&Olufsen we are in the process of creating an annual 4-day camp for up to 20 girls aged 15-20, introducing them to Live Sound.
For each section an introduction to different options of education and the greater network will be included.
Read more about the individual sections further down.
The success criteria for the program
We want to be a gate for women who wish to enter the live music industry.
We also want to change the mindset for young girls and make it natural for them to work in “a man’s world”.
We hope that within the next 5-7 years the number of women working behind the stage will have increased from less than 10% to hopefully 35% – not only by introducing women to the industry, but also by holding onto those already working in the industry.
The Needs for the execution of the program
Unfortunately the Safe Learning Environment program is not without costs. We require funding to cover the instructor fees, the project managers and their assistants. We also need funding for learning materials and sometimes we need support for travel arrangements and accommodation for the events across Europe. We depend on accessing venues and gear for free, and are very grateful to those who are help us out with this.
Our principals dictate our workshops should be free of charge, as we believe knowledge is power and should be given for free to everybody, not just those who are lucky enough to afford it. If you have an idea for a donation or a sponsorship, we are open for any suggestions.
The WILM Ambassadors are organisations, companies & artists who actively support WILM and the effort for more diversity backstage.
Linnea Ljungmark
AYRTON
Linnea is the owner of Topstage and the swedish distributor of our WILM Ambassador. She is also a representative for the global organisation WIL – Women in Lighting.
Read More here
As a sales manager through many years for Ayrton and now MD for the Swedish company Topstage (exclusive distributor for Ayrton, but also for Schnick & Schnack Systems and Follow-Me in Sweden), what is the main task in your job?
We provide our industry with hardware and sometimes support & knowledge, tools for designers and equipment for rental companies, theatres, venues and installations. Topstage focus is on selling lighting to the Swedish market and my role is to run the company and make sure we spread information about the products and create demand. In the end it’s about sales.
With many years behind you in the sales department of products for the event lighting industry do you feel your industry has changed – and in which way?
I think the industry has been under constant development since touring became a big thing in the 80’s. Some of those who’ve been around since the beginning are now retiring and I think there is a shift in generation happening, this comes with new ideas and change. There are a lot more women in technical positions compared to 25 years ago even if we are still underrepresented. Believe it or not but back then so called booth babes were a thing at trade shows, it’s a relief that we moved away from that. Major technological changes we’ve seen include the introduction of LED lights and the integration of video in the design and more recently we are seeing lasers being used as a source in moving lights.
With few words what kind of effort has Ayrton done for more diversity behind the scenes
The easy way of doing things is by doing what you always did and turning to those who remind you of yourself. I think the key here is awareness on a management level and Ayrtonemploys people from very different age groups, nationalities and backgrounds. This isn’t just about gender and in the end it needs to be about competence but diversity can create a more dynamic and creative workplace and also give you a larger group to recruit from. When I came up with the idea to include entertainment lighting to the architectural lighting project ‘Women In Lighting’ Ayrton made it possible and played a major role in making it happen. I think this partnership shows how open Ayrton is to thinking outside the box, WIL x Ayrton has been a game changer for many women in lighting and for our industry as a whole.
You mentioned Women In Lighting for whom you are a representative – can you tell us a bit about this project?
The Women In Lighting project is about highlighting the work of women in a male dominated industry.When creating a platform for women to talk about their work they will also serve as role models and sources of inspiration for women from all over the world. Women In Lighting(WIL) Entertainmentis not just for designers but open for technicians, sales, marketing, operators to join and on the website www.womeninlighting.com there are interviews, both recorded and in written, that you can read and watch, go to the entertainment section for the part related to our industry. You can also upload your own written interview and If you sign up for the Entertainment Newsletter you will receive information and invitations to the Meet-Up’s we are organiseing. Seeing this project come together to include entertainment lighting and growing and developing globally is a fantastic journey, I am so glad to be part of it!
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