Written evidence submitted by the Association of Independent Festivals (MiM0019)

 

Who are AIF?

The Association of Independent Festivals (AIF) is the UK’s leading festival trade association representing the interests of 90+ UK music festivals, ranging from 500 to 76,000 capacity. Our members collectively entertain over one million fans every year, and AIF represents half of all festivals in the UK that are 5,000+ capacity.

According to a survey conducted in January 2022, 48.48% of the AIF Membership identify as female.

We wish to acknowledge in our response that both trans and non-binary people can also be victims of misogyny.

Safer Spaces at Festivals

 

Sexual violence is difficult to measure due to under reporting, both at festivals and in wider society. Our Safer Spaces at Festivals campaign encourages a proactive approach from festival organisers, who take this issue incredibly seriously in the planning and delivery of their events.

 

Originally launched in 2017, we updated our Safer Spaces campaign in time for the 2022 season. Focused on promoting sexual safety at festivals, the initiative comprises of a Charter of Best Practice for signatory festivals, and a public-facing awareness campaign. The campaign was developed with Rape Crisis, Safe Gigs for Women, Girls Against, Good Night Out and UN Women - you can find out more here- https://aiforg.com/initiatives/safer-spaces/ 

Over 100 festivals signed up to the Charter of Best Practice, which includes a commitment for events to have a sexual safety policy in place and robust procedures in place for when instances occur. The Charter also contains a commitment to appropriate training levels for staff onsite. The Charter encourages festivals to take a survivor-led approach to dealing with any incidents or reports that happen on their sites.

 

AIF also produced assets for the festivals to share with their audiences, highlighting the existence of the policies in place, as well as educating their audiences on consent and bystander intervention.

 

AIF will be continually monitoring those who have signed the Charter, and provide further support to ensure its aims continue to be met.

 

Line-ups at festivals
 

The work that the PRS Foundation Keychange campaign has done encouraging festivals and music organisations to include 50% women and underrepresented genders in programming, staffing and beyond is laudable.

 

Some independent festivals have achieved gender balance in their line-ups (examples including Standon Calling, Strawberries & Creem Festival, Shambala and Underneath the Stars).

 

AIF have also promoted ‘The F List’ to our members, this is a directory which helps UK female and gender minority musicians overcome structural barriers by facilitating training and profile and professional opportunities.

 

It is important to acknowledge however, that there are nuances to this and the genre of festival can have a significant impact. For example, Mighty Hoopla festival programmes predominantly pop music - frequently having 85%+ of their lineup from female and other underrepresented genders.

 

However, other festivals such as ArcTanGent, despite having a high proportion of female-identifying team, operate in a very specific and male-heavy genre - meaning that gender parity on their lineup is much harder to achieve.

 

If gender balance is an issue with festivals then by definition it is an issue with the wider music industry ecosystem and talent pipeline - venues, record labels, publishers etc.. Most artists have passed through parts of that pipeline before reaching their first festival appearance.

 

Festivals are an easy target as they are annual events who publish entire line ups on a poster visually. We would like to see a similar level of scrutiny applied to other parts of the pipeline alongside festivals and for the music industry to work collectively to address this. 

 

July 2022