Women on the Road
If you want to get a sense of representation on the road, award nominations are one place to look. As many of the interviewees for this feature excitedly pointed out, women dominate certain categories on the shortlist for this year’s TPI Awards. For the Tour Manager of the Year Award, five out of six nominees are women.
“That’s pretty huge,” says nominee Rebecca Travis, who has been tour manager for artists including James Blake, Gorillaz, Ellie Goulding, Florence and the Machine, and Arcade Fire.“I’ve been getting nominated for that kind of award quite a few times, and it’s generally one or two women in that category,” she adds.
Marguerite Nguyen, longtime tour manager for Coldplay, and another one of the five female nominees, says the tour manager shortlist reflects a growing trend. “Tour managers are increasingly female,” she tells IQ from her home in Chicago. “I think women are better at this role, just like I think men are better at other roles on the road. My theory is that women are better multitaskers than men. Plus, there’s probably a little bit of motherly care to how we operate.”
Travis attests: “I do believe that women have perhaps a more caring, nurturing, motherly sort of way with them, and they might be more thoughtful about things like eating and health and mental wellbeing.”
While female representation among tour managers is strong, unfortunately, it’s not reflective of gender balance in the wider production industry – especially when it comes to technical departments.
“It’s always been the ‘merch girl’ or the ‘sound guy'”
“The highest representation I’ve seen is ten women on a crew of 50 people,” says Laura Nagtegaal, a guitar technician and tour manager who has been working in the industry for 30 years. “And when it comes to the backline, I’m a unicorn.”
Travis, whose industry career has spanned 25 years, has also noticed a gender divide when it comes to different touring disciplines: “Wardrobe, catering, management, assistant roles, are female-dominated, and accountants, and tour managers are well-represernted, but I struggle to think of many female production managers.”
On the other side of the production industry is Ginger Owl, a female-led company dealing in event management, accreditation, logistics, and advancing. “We advance lots of festivals and still, primarily, our main contacts are men – especially the technical and production roles,” says Julie Chennells. “You can count on one hand the ladies you see in the lighting industry, for example. We tend to see them more in logistics and sectors like in accreditation.
“I wouldn’t like to comment whether it’s society pushing women that way or if it’s because they don’t have the opportunities or if it’s indeed because they’re just not that interested in that side. It’s a very difficult question and debate. But if you look at the touring industry, it’s a microcosm of the world.”
Nagtegaal points out, gender inequality across roles has long been ingrained in ways we might not even realise: “It’s always been the ‘merch girl’ or the ‘sound guy.’”
“There are more women than I had ever witnessed on any other tour”
In a league of their own
It may not come as a surprise that one of the acts setting the bar for diversity among touring crews is Coldplay, a band that has been industry-leading in more ways than one.
Marguerite Nguyen started touring with the British icons in 2008 on the Viva La Vida tour as the production coordinator, before getting promoted to tour manager for Mylo Xyloto.
“I remember one day, we were walking the band offstage, and I saw a sea of women surrounding the band as they were walking back to the dressing room,” she recalls of her early days with the band. “There are more women than I had ever witnessed on any other tour – and it’s by no means a requirement of employment,” she says.
Coldplay’s team comprises more than 40 women and, what’s more notable than that, is the roles they take up on the crew: from head carpenter to Chris Martin’s personal security officer.
Travis, who was recently drafted into the Coldplay crew by Nguyen, says Coldplay are peerless when it comes to the gender balance of crew. “There are women everywhere on that team,” she says. “The technical departments are really well represented but that’s because the band make a real conscious effort to do that. They have programmes and apprenticeships, and it’s great because the band is huge, and they have the budget. But I think genuinely it just stems from the fact that the band wants to work with women.”
“There are women everywhere on [the Coldplay] team”
But as Travis knows from previous experiences, some artists are willing to hire more women in their crew but are not able to do so for a range of reasons, including the shortage of staff post-Covid.
“If you were only recruiting two or three new crew, ideally you would like to be diverse but really you’re just trying to get the very best people,” says Travis. “And actually, after Covid, sometimes you’re sometimes just trying to get people [full stop].”
Like any industry, hiring practices are crucial to end up with a diverse workforce. So who are the people in charge of staffing a tour?
“Tours are mostly staffed when you come onto them,” explains Travis. “If you’ve got a tour manager and a production manager and you’ve been touring a while, they’ll have people they’ve been working with for years.”
Although Nguyen hired Travis, she tells IQ that she rarely has a hand in recruitment, but when she does, “I try to choose the person who has the best skill set for that position.”
Travis, if in the position to staff a tour, would also hire based on merit: “There is definitely a sisterhood, but I wouldn’t hire a woman over a man unless they were as or better qualified.”
“We probably attract women because we are female directors”
Ginger Owl’s Julie Chennells and Nancy Skipper are two women who are in the position to hire and, incidentally, have a female-dominated team. “The management team is all female. We’ve got ten full-time staff and only three of them are male. This is not through choice but through choosing the people who are right to do the job,” says Skipper.
However, she admits that being a female-led company is a draw for female candidates hoping to work in the industry –underlining the importance of visibility and representation.
“We probably attract women because we are female directors. Quite often we read that in emails – that’s something that’s drawn them to apply.”
But if, as these women say, hiring in the industry is a meritocracy, it begs the question why women aren’t represented across the board. Is it because they’re underqualified or is it because they’re not applying for certain positions in the first place – perhaps because they can’t see other women in certain positions?
“The music industry is the only industry that hasn’t been affected by the MeToo movement”
An unfair fight
The thing with meritocracy is that it only works if the playing field is even to start with and, as these women tell IQ, sexism and misogyny are alive and well in the industry. “I don’t know any woman that hasn’t encountered sexism and misogyny. No matter how big or how small or how innocent or how extreme,” says Nguyen.
“The music industry is the only industry that hasn’t been affected by the MeToo movement,” she adds. A recent survey by Women In Live Music (WILM) found that 41% feel that they don’t belong to the music industry because they are women. Respondents comprised 187 women from 26 different countries.
Laura Nagtegaal, who is a transgender woman, has a unique perspective on sexism in the industry, having presented as a man for the first chunk of her career before transitioning. “[Before transitioning] I would typically work ten to 20 events a month, and it doesn’t happen anymore,” she says. “If I ever had a situation where I reached the end of my money before the end of the month, all I would need to do is ask anyone in the industry and before I could even finish the sentence, I would have multiple job offers.”
“It makes me think what if I [was never] good but because I presented as a bloke, I was just one of the guys, and guys can’t fail to [get to] the top.”
“It’s common knowledge in every industry that women always get paid less than men”
Even the women that do manage to progress through the industry’s meritocracy are still not getting the same rewards or recognition as their male counterparts.
“It’s common knowledge in every industry that women always get paid less than men,” says Nguyen.“It’s a very touchy subject with women, but I think that we should not be scared to talk about salaries and money. We should be asking each other ‘Hey, what did you get on this tour? Or ‘What should I ask for?’ Or ‘I really think I deserve a raise.’ I definitely don’t think men are having those kinds of conversations.”
Nobody puts baby in a corner
Another possible reason for the lack of female representation within touring crews, especially in some of the leading positions, is the difficulty of having children and maintaining a career on the road.
WILM, a European platform and online community for women in live music with more than 7,000 users, has long been investigating the impact – perceived and proven – of motherhood on women’s careers.
“We noticed over the years that women on-stage and offstage would hide their pregnancy if they were expecting, out of fear of losing jobs,” says WILM co-founder Malle Kaas.
“I think most people give up the industry if they have kids”
“We heard many women saying they would postpone having children as they couldn’t see themselves having kids and keep working in the live music industry.”
Nguyen can testify to this: “I have always wanted to have children. When I was 36, I froze my eggs as an insurance policy for my future because I just didn’t know what was going to happen.
“If I choose to have a baby, I can’t do my job. It’s just a fact, and it sucks. And I know that I’m not done doing what I’m doing. I know women who are on the road who have children, and it’s super difficult. I think women instinctively have a guilt of being away.”
“I wish there was a better system for all women in every spectrum of the world and their careers. For women on the road, particularly, it is more difficult.”
Travis says this is true for women in the tour manager roles because of the nature of the job. “Sometimes people ask me if I’ve got kids and I say, ‘When would that have happened? Where are they when I’m out here?’” she laughs. “A tour management job is all-encompassing. If you were a monitor engineer or a lighting operator, and you had a partner with a job that would allow them to look after the child, you could go away for a week or two, but as a tour manager, there’s no way you could do that. I think most people give up the industry if they have kids.”
“I felt like I couldn’t be seen to be incapable because I was pregnant otherwise, people would stop giving me work”
Chennells, who has children of her own, adds: “I do think it’s another reason that [this industry] could be more off-putting to someone.”
The Ginger Owl boss remembers the pressure she felt to plough on with her work both before and after she gave birth, due to a lack of infrastructure for pregnant women – especially those that are freelance.
“I worked as a promoter rep until I was around eight months pregnant,” she says. “I felt like I couldn’t be seen to be incapable because I was pregnant otherwise, people would stop giving me work. You feel like you have to plough on to not be out of the circuit.”
Chennells returned to her first event when her daughter was two and a half months old: “I’d still been breastfeeding her and stuff, and I remember having to express in a PolyJohn [toilet] because there was just no other way. That’s just how it was, there are no provisions for stuff like that.”
By the same token
In other industries, those in charge of hiring have deployed positive discrimination when it comes to hiring, as a means to diversify the workforce, but the live music industry has mixed opinions.
“There are positive and negative sides to [positive discrimination],” says Laura Nagtegaal. “For instance, one band likes to book me because I’m Polish.”
But as she points out, there’s a difference between positive discrimination and tokenism. “One band, as I found out later, received an extra subsidy from the government for hiring a transgender person,” she says. “So that felt so much worse than tokenism, that felt like being used. Tokenism makes you second guess yourself – it creates imposter syndrome.”
“People see me on stage and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, I can do this, too.'”
Imposter syndrome seems to be prevalent among women in the industry – possibly for that reason. In the aforementioned WILM survey, 44% of respondents said that, in general, they feel less confident than their male colleagues.
But Nagtegaal points out that despite the intention when it comes to hiring women, the result is often positive. “By hiring me, the numbers actually go up, there’s more representation,” she says. “People see me on stage and they’re like, ‘Oh my god, I can do this, too.’ People literally come up to me after the show and say, ‘I didn’t know women could do this.’”
Travis says that being part of a minority has proved to be an advantage when it comes to getting hired for a job: “There’s less of you, therefore you stand out more.”
On the flip side, Chennells argues: “I do think it can be quite intimidating still to go into a very male-orientated sector like the audio or the lighting crew.”
Levelling the playing field
When WILM launched seven years ago to increase the representation of women backstage, the co-founders hoped it wouldn’t be needed for more than six months.
“We were so wrong!” says Kaas. “The need for WILM gets bigger every year, and we are looking at six to seven more years of work as we try to keep up with the huge demand for our community.”
“I just want women to have the same opportunities as men”
In an industry that continues to be dominated by men, there are many improvements to be made for women – from equal pay to better support for mothers – but the women are keen to point out that there are some fundamental issues that needs to be addressed first.
“One thing is to introduce and recruit women to the industry, another thing is to retain them,” says Kaas. “It takes about three to five years of training to get a competent person who can do the gig. But the majority of women dropout of the industry after three to four years for whatever reason. If we don’t find solutions to retain the women in the industry, we’ll keep on losing them and not really getting anywhere.”
Put simply by Nguyen: “I just want women to have the same opportunities as men. It would be nice to have an even playing field for everybody, no matter how you identify.”
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
Popular tour manager Dee Mc Loughlin passes
Dee Mc Loughlin, who worked with the likes of MCP Promotions, ITB and SJM, and had long associations with Simply Red, Sisters of Mercy, Marillion, Neil Young, The Chemical Brothers, Scorpions and, most notably, Crowded House, has died.
Born Derrig Mc Loughlin in the coastal town of Dún Laoghaire, Ireland, he was educated in nearby Blackrock, where he attended the same school as Bob Geldof.
He left his homeland for England in the late 1960s and enrolled in the Royal Air Force, where he found himself seconded to the Sultan’s Air Force in Oman. Long-time friend and industry colleague Paul Flower recalls that Dee was reticent to talk about his military service as he had lost friends in combat. However, Mc Loughlin said that the camaraderie he experienced in the forces was replicated somewhat in being part of a touring crew.
Stationed at Cosford, near Wolverhampton, Mc Loughlin settled in the local area where he had friends who followed Birmingham City and, while he was essentially a Liverpool supporter, he joined them at many games, prompting a move to the Moseley area of Birmingham.
A huge live music fan, having explored all the UK festivals of the 70s with his first wife, Jackie, Dee became part of the security team at Birmingham Odeon – the region’s premier venue during the 70s and 80s. It was there that he met Paul Ward and helped to form the Birmingham Stage Crew, a tight and organised unit that served the venue and others in the area. This brought Dee into wider contact with bands and promoters, notably the Walsall-based MCP Promotions who later became his employer in the late 1980s.
Keeping the talent happy was Dee’s obsession and his easy-going affability made him one of the most popular characters on the touring circuit as a rep and tour manager throughout his 40-plus-year career.
“He continued to buy and consume music to the very end”
He would often become part of the artist family, literally in some cases, as from 2006 to 2007 he lived in the home of Neil Finn when working for the singer and guitarist as his personal TM and part of the management team at Finn’s Roundhead Studios in Auckland, New Zealand.
As a result of his relationships and wanderlust, he spent a lot of time in Europe and America, particularly St Louis. His move to New Zealand, however, was curtailed by home-sickness for his small flat and the local community in Moseley, and he spent the rest of his days back in Birmingham.
Flower says that despite Dee’s advanced age he was eager to continue working and was saddened not to be able to complete tours with Judas Priest, and his beloved Crowded House, because of ill health, which prompted his retirement at the age of 72. One of his last TM roles was with Dexys, and he got on so well with the band that frontman Kevin Rowland tried to tempt him out of retirement to help with this year’s tour.
“He continued to go to gigs though, seeing relatively obscure bands in Birmingham,” reports Flower. “He was due to see Soul II Soul earlier this month, and we’d got tickets for Dub Pistols in November. He continued to buy and consume music to the very end.”
Dee McLoughlin’s funeral will be held back in his native Ireland, while Flower is also planning a memorial event in Birmingham.
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
LGBTIQ+ List 2023: Lucy Mackenzie McNae, Two and a Half TMs
The LGBTIQ+ List 2023 – IQ Magazine’s third annual celebration of queer professionals who make an immense impact in the international live music business – has been revealed.
The ever-popular list is the centrepiece of IQ’s third Pride edition, sponsored by Ticketmaster, which is now available to read online and in print for subscribers.
To get to know this year’s queer pioneers a little better, we interviewed each of them on the development of the industry, the challenges that are keeping them up at night and more.
Throughout the next month, IQ will publish a new interview each day. Check out yesterday’s profile with Stefan Lehmkuhl, freelance curator & live entertainment consultant at BMG/Ruined My Rainbow in Berlin, Germany.
The series continues with Lucy MacKenzie McNae (she/her/hers), tour manager (Josef, Twin Atlantic) at Two and a Half TMs in Glasgow, Scotland.
Tell us about the professional feat you’re most PROUD of in 2023 so far.
Giving The Ironworks in Inverness the sendoff it deserved with Twin Atlantic before it closed in February was both a really proud moment and also bittersweet. Despite being from Glasgow, I feel like I grew up in that venue, going from being a touring merch manager there back in 2008 through to TM’ing one of the last shows was quite an experience. As a production, we really wanted to lay everything we could on the table for Caroline and the Ironworks staff, who have always made that venue feel like coming home, no matter who I was on tour with, so going back to close out The Ironworks was important to us all.
Name one queer act you’re itching to see live this year.
Peach PRC.
What advice could you give to young queer professionals?
Just be yourself; get stuck into whatever is going on; be helpful; learn how to lift properly; and always have a sharpie.
In terms of challenges in the industry, what’s currently keeping you up at night?
Costs and expectations? Can I say that? Because it feels like everything is going up except the fees and guarantees.
“It feels like everything is going up except the fees and guarantees”
How do you see the live music business developing in the next few years?
I think there will come a point where it starts to even out again soon; live music has become so expensive from all angles that unless we do everything we can as an industry and public to support independent venues, we are going to lose a lot of soul and the training grounds where most bands and crew learn their crafts.
Name one thing you’d like to see the live music business change.
Touring can be rough, the hours aren’t conducive to being able to keep relationships, and at the lower levels, they are so mentally, physically, and financially draining that it can really shut out a lot of people from being able to continue. More support, both financially and also holistically, would really make a difference to crew, sessions, and artists across the board.
Shout out to your biggest ally in the live music industry.
It takes a team to pull everything together so I can’t name just one. Alison Lamb at Modest! Management, Ross ‘Falcon’ Morgan that I started Two and a Half TMs with, and Ross and Sam from Twin Atlantic have all been instrumental in their own ways. And, of course, Cameron Brisbane for being the best photographer I know (not just because he takes photos of the crew).
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
The LGBTIQ+ List 2022: Georgie Lanfranchi, Only Helix
The LGBTIQ+ List 2022 – IQ Magazine’s second annual celebration of queer professionals who make an immense impact in the international live music business – was published in the Pride edition (issue 112) this month.
The July 2022 issue, which is available to read now, was made possible thanks to support from Ticketmaster.
To get to know this year’s queer pioneers a little better, we interviewed each individual on their challenges, triumphs, advice and more.
Throughout the next month, IQ will publish a new interview each day. Catch up on the previous interview with David Jones (he/him/his), chief information officer at AEG in the UK.
The series continues with Georgie Lanfranchi (she/her/hers), tour manager/production coordinator at Only Helix in the UK.
Tell us about a personal triumph in your career
I have had the privilege of looking after so many outstanding performers and crew but my journey with Years & Years, growing from being their production coordinator to their tour manger, has been by far the most rewarding of my career. Being queer and working for one of the biggest gay icons of our time is a true honour, especially when it’s someone as talented, authentic, and kind as Olly [Alexander, Years & Years]. He is a truly special individual and that trickles down to make a wonderfully remarkable touring family. Working their set on Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury in 2019 was a real top 10 highlight of my life.
What advice could you give to young queer professionals?
Try your best not to hide who you are. This can often be instinctive for queer people but the industry is changing, opinions are changing and the best way to help drive that forward is to be visible. The more diversity we push forward, the more that follows. The main advice I give to anyone, in general, is to be kind, be a team player and take a moment every day to take in how amazing our jobs really are.
“I actually feel that being a woman is more of a hindrance [than being queer] in this industry”
What’s the best mistake you’ve ever made?
Without sounding too corny, every mistake I have made is the best mistake, it’s the best way to learn how to do things right. Those cringy, stomach-dropping, mortifying moments that stick with you when you realise you’ve messed up stick with you for a reason. You don’t make those mistakes again! I’ve made a lot of them, and I will make more in the future, and I will be a better learner and teacher for it.
Tell us about a professional challenge you’ve come across as a queer person in the industry
I’ve had to think quite hard about this. I’m not sure I have ever had any challenges specifically because I am queer, as I actually feel that being a woman is more of a hindrance in this industry, but it can be hard to distinguish I suppose, the two are probably quite entwined. I have been incredibly lucky to work on tours that have been very inclusive and with people who have never made it a problem. Don’t get me wrong, I still get a lot of ignorant questions from people that perhaps don’t (knowingly) have queer people in their life, or even bother to think about the answers before they ask the questions, but I’d say you’d be hard pressed to find a queer person that doesn’t!
One thing the live industry could do to be a more inclusive place
There are a lot of incredible people who are creating the spaces they need to feel included within the industry, so get involved! And if you can’t find the space you need, go and make it! I think it’s so wonderful to see the industry changing to represent marginalised groups as a whole, and people are finally starting to feel seen and heard. I think what we really do need to remember to do is not to isolate ourselves within these spaces. The industry itself will not grow if we pocket ourselves into our groups; we need to make sure everyone is included, and everyone supports everyone else’s cause so that we are integrated into the industry at large. This is not a courtesy we have been given in the past, but to move forward, we have to be better.
“The industry itself will not grow if we pocket ourselves into our groups; we need to make sure everyone is included”
Causes you support
Music Support, CALM, The Trevor Project, David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, WWF, Rainforest Alliance.
The queer act you’re itching to see live this year
The list is extensive but I’m normally on the road, so I tend not to torture myself looking up gigs I’ll never be able to go to! That is the joy of festival season though; seeing a plethora of artists you never thought you’d get to see. I’ve still yet to see Tash Sultana after their gig got cancelled due to the pandemic… maybe one day!
Your favourite queer space
It will forever be my first queer outing – Flamingos Nightclub in Bristol – which is sadly no more. The first time I went was with two friends, we all told our parents we were going to each other’s houses and hopped on a train with some IDs from girls a couple of school years above us. ‘Drink the bar dry’ was Flamingos trademark, and for £20 we got in and gave that a good go! I felt a real absence of queer spaces growing up, from the countryside towns I grew up in and even the cities I frequented in my university years. It’s so important to keep these spaces going so queer folk have a safe space to go, and a place to find and express themselves. Support your local queer spaces!
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.
Backstage Pass launches #spotlightonher campaign
Netherlands’ Backstage Pass initiative has launched the #spotlightonher campaign for International Women’s Day to shine a light on female crew members.
Set up by award-winning tour manager Lotje Horvers in an effort to increase diversity and inclusion in the Dutch live sector, Backstage Pass is collaborating with a variety of platforms on the scheme.
Artists and venues are encouraged to post a video or photo of the women in their crew on their social media accounts, using the #spotlightonher hashtag.
“During the pandemic, while being unable to tour, I have been keeping busy with a variety of things, including mentoring young women looking to break into touring and learning more about diversity and inclusion,” explains Horvers, who has worked with artists such as Robyn, Fever Ray, Röyksopp and The Knife.
“The campaign is meant for artists, suppliers, venues and festivals to use their socials to put the women on their tech crew in the spotlight”
“One of the things I did was set up a not-for-profit in the Netherlands, Backstage Pass. We are launching an international Women’s Day campaign in collaboration with Soundgirls, Women in Live Music, She is the Music, Diversify the Stage and many other platforms.
“Basically, the campaign is meant for artists, suppliers, venues and festivals to use their socials to put the women on their tech crew in the spotlight, with the goal of reaching other girls and inspiring them for their future careers. ”
The campaign mission statement is as follows: “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 8 March. After all, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see!'”
Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.