The PRS Foundation has announced plans to extend its Keychange initiative for gender equality beyond the almost 200 festivals that have already signed up.
Amongst the new signees to the scheme – which was originally launched to encourage festivals to achieve a 50/50 gender balance within their line-ups by 2022 – are record labels, orchestras and concert halls.
Speaking about the scheme, Keychange founder Vanessa Reed told The Guardian: "We were really reassured and excited by the fact that we were approached by so many people. Fairly quickly and with no particular marketing investment we reached a 100 signatories by last June and now we are almost at 200 festivals."
With issues surrounding gender equality within the music industry extending well beyond the make-up of line-ups, Reed added that it was a natural step to open up the remit of the Keychange campaign. "The music industry can’t work in silos. Every part affects the other so we want to join the dots and ensure that everyone is working together towards a shared goal, which will ultimately strengthen the music industry as a whole," she told The Guardian.
The Barbican, Opera North and Royal Opera are amongst the latest organisations to join up to Keychange with all pledging to targets relevant to their organisations, such as improve gender equality in bookings or hiring more non-male employees. Once again, each new signee has pledged towards targets they feel they can achieve by 2022.
Find out more about Keychange here and find a list of today’s new signatories here.
