Lucy Dickins receives 2023 MITS Award

WME global head of contemporary music and touring Lucy Dickins collected the 2023 Music Industry Trust Award at a star-studded ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House.

Last night’s event, which raised funds for The Brit Trust and music therapy charity Nordoff & Robbins, was attended by around 1,000 music business executives, many of whom had flown in from Europe and the United States to honour Dickins.

Video tributes from the likes of Adele, Mahalia, Little Simz, Ben Lovett, Rex Orange County, Denis Desmond, Jason Isley, Kelly Chappel, Emma Banks, Matt Wooliscroft, Ben Mortimer, Marc Geiger, Rob Stringer, David Joseph, Simon Moran and Pete Tong were screened, while artists Loyle Carner and Hot Chip provided the live entertainment, along with an ensemble of students from The Brit School, which directly benefits from the fundraising gala.

“I grew up watching some of my favourite people and idols winning this, so it’s incredible to be here”

Dedicating the award to her children Ezra and Audrey, Dickins received the award from her artist manager brother Jonathan, and stated, “I grew up watching some of my favourite people and idols winning this, so it’s incredible to be here.

“I’d like to thank each and every one of you for this moment. May we continue to nurture, support and empower great talent and may we continue to live and love in music. I’m truly humbled to receive this award tonight and I hope that in some small way I’ve inspired the next generation of women in music, which translates into the live music business in the future.

“Life in this industry, as you know, is extremely busy. But being a working mother is another beast altogether. I have so much respect for you mothers who are fighting the fight because it is not easy. We’re constantly feeling that we’re sacrificing one part of our life for another… So whatever way you look at it, you have guilt… And it’s really, really hard to balance it all and often people say “I don’t know how you do it all”. But you absolutely can’t do it all.. All you can do is just do your best. That’s what I tell everyone.”

“I have a newfound respect for what it means to be a working mum”

Dickins, who joined WME in 2019 and is a member of Endeavor’s Diversity and Inclusion working group, began her career working as a junior product manager for an independent UK record label PWL before joining International Booking Talent (ITB) as an assistant in the early 1990s and rising through the ranks at the agency.

Her grandfather, Percy Dickins, founded legendary music weekly the New Musical Express (NME), while her father, Barry, formed ITB in 1978. Her uncle Rob was longtime head of Warner Music in the UK, and her brother Jonathan heads up management company September Management with a roster that includes Adele.

Before presenting her with the award, Jonathan Dickins told the crowd: “I’m really proud because I think I’ve learnt one thing, and that is that I have a newfound respect for what it means to be a working mum. Anybody that holds a career, and especially the level that she does, and happens to be a present parent is… I’m in awe of that. And that, to me, goes well beyond any achievements in music.

“She’s a fierce negotiator, strategic, loyal, and most importantly, the greatest sister I could possibly ever have.”

“I started going on about being a singer and I whipped a demo right out of my bag and I said, ‘You’re gonna be my agent'”

Adele, meanwhile, recalled the time she and Lucy met: “I started going on about being a singer and I whipped a demo right out of my bag and I said, ‘You’re gonna be my agent.’ I didn’t hear back from her for quite a while and my details were on the demo. But I told my manager, who I was newly managed by, I told him that I found my agent. And he was like ‘Great, what’s their name?’ and I was like ‘Lucy Dickins’ and he said ‘That’s my sister!’ So, we met separately and they’ve both worked with me since I was 18 years old.”

Dickins joins the ranks of previous MITS recipients including Annie Lennox, Kylie Minogue, Emma Banks, Sir Elton John and Bernie Taupin, Gary Barlow, Simon Cowell, Rob Stringer, Sir Lucian Grainge and Michael Eavis.

Revisit IQ’s 2022 feature on Dickins, looking back on her first 25 years in the music industry, here.

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