International Women’s Day Music Crew Visibility Campaign

Backstage Pass have launched a music crew visibility campaign for International Women’s Day 2022. The initiative hopes to highlight and celebrate women on 8^th March via social media and online around the world.

About the campaign

The philosophy behind the campaign is simple, as Backstage Pass explain:

“Representation and visibility are an important step towards diversity and inclusion. To inspire, encourage and empower girls to find and follow their dream of working in live music, we invite artists to introduce the women in their (stage) crew on their socials for International Women’s Day on March 8. After all, you can’t be what you can’t see!”

• It can be a photo or a video, you can be in it yourself or only feature your crew, and please use hashtage #spotlightonher and #IWD22 and #BreaktheBias. Please tag all collab partners:

@backstagepass.nl @soundgirls @sheisthemusic @womeninlivemusic @tour_production_group @keychangeeu @diversifythestage @musicforward @omniicollective @liveoutlive_la

• You can include her job title and add a quote, for example to explain what she does in her words, or an anecdote from your experience working together.
• You can use the campaign frame or post with your own design.
• All crew are welcome but the focus of this campaign is on workers in technical/stage roles, as this is where the imbalance is the most significant.
• Please make sure women have given consent to have their image shared and photographers are credited.

Some sample captions

For #IWD22 we want to put the spotlight on the women in our team! Check out this video where Sharon (guitar tech), Sienna (monitor engineer) and Tess (video director) each briefly describe their job on our tour. #guitartech #monitorengineer #videodirector #spotlightonher #womeninlivemusic #soundgirls #IWD22 #BreaktheBias #diversifythestage

Alicia (she/her, FOH engineer) and Bex (they/them, guitar tech) have been an essential part of my road crew since 2017 and I hope to be working with them for many years to come! Are you interested in working on tour? Check out www.diversityontour.com for tips and resources. #spotlightonher #spotlightonthem #womeninlivemusic #soundgirls #IWD22

For artists who currently have an all-male crew:

Sadly we don’t have any women on our crew at this time, but we wholeheartedly support women and genderdiverse crew (touring and local). We have taken the @diversifythestage Inclusion Initiative Pledge and work with @soundgirls to offer shadowing opportunities on our tour. Are you interested in working in live music? Check out www.diversityontour.com for tips and resources. #spotlightonher #womeninlivemusic #soundgirls #IWD22 #BreaktheBias #diversifythestage

Looking to diversify your crew? Check website www.diversityontour.com for tips and resources, or check out crew databases such as: WILM Crewlist, EQL directory by Soundgirls, SITM Database, Black Tour Directory and Never Famous.

This campaign is an initiative by Backstage Pass, in collaboration with Soundgirls, She is the Music, Women in Live Music, Keychange, Diversify the Stage, TPG, Omnii Collective & Music Forward.

@backstagepass.nl @soundgirls @sheisthemusic @womeninlivemusic @tour_production_group @keychangeeu @diversifythestage @musicforward @omniicollective @liveoutlive_la

If you have genderdiverse people on your team, we would love to include them in the campaign, as a more equitable workspace is our core value. However, we are mindful that it can be considered unpleasant and inappropriate to promote them on a Women’s Day campaign. Therefore, we want to offer the option, and for people to make the decision to be included in the campaign themselves.

https://www.backstage-pass.nl/

Also by Michelle Sciarrotta: