Keychange 2.0 unveiled at Reeperbahn festival by Kate Nash, Peaches, Puja Patel

19 September 2019 - Press release

The extended project will increase its support to 74 participants each year, up from 60 previously

Participants from Canada, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK make Keychange 2.0 global

New additions to the programme include bespoke training, creative workshops, a mentoring programme, and a global database to encourage diverse festival bookings

Details of the next phase of Keychange were announced today at a presentation and press launch at Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg, hosted by Puja Patel (Editor In Chief at Pitchfork). The four-year project will see Keychange support 216 participants from countries including - Canada, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. The project will also include an extended programme, which will aim to develop and educate participants through a series of training and creative workshops, and a mentoring programme. Keychange 2.0 will also form a global database of all participants and pledge signatories, encouraging diverse lineups across the board.

The news follows the recent announcement that the global movement for gender equality recently received €1.4m in funding from the European Commission, and also announced a new management structure headed up by lead partner Reeperbahn Festival.

Keychange 2.0 will support 74 participants each year. The participants will be made up of music creators and innovative music industry professionals from Canada, Estonia, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. The participants will take part in an extensive talent development programme of showcases, panels, workshops, training sessions, networking events and creative labs at 13 festivals across Europe and Canada, including two full network meetups in February and September. The Keychange panels will feature high profile personalities and inspiring discussions, confidence-building, and skills support from partners including Songtrust and Soundcloud.

Additional elements to Keychange 2.0 include a database which will list and promote all Keychange participants and pledge signatories, as well as a mentoring scheme, Keychange conference, online resources, more ambassadors, and an expanded management team.

Speaking on the announcement, Kate Nash said “Its encouraging to see all these organisations involved with Keychange because it means that things can finally start to change.. Music is about feeling part of a community and feeling included - it’s about being seen and heard.”

An open call for participants will launch in October 2019 through the Keychange website. Innovative and boundary-pushing applicants from all partner countries are encouraged to apply. Of the six participants per country, three will be artists and three will be innovative industry professionals.

The initiative, founded by PRS Foundation has expanded with like-minded European partners and sponsors who believe that the future of music will benefit from a more balanced representation of all genders across all aspects of the industry. Reeperbahn Festival (Germany) will lead the second phase of Keychange, working closely with PRS Foundation (UK) and Musikcentrum Öst (Sweden).

Reeperbahn Festival, alongside other leading festival partners from each country - Iceland Airwaves (Iceland), BIME (Spain), Oslo World (Norway), Tallinn Music Week (Estonia), Ireland Music Week (Ireland), Way Out West (Sweden), Linecheck (Italy), Liverpool Sound City (UK), Spring Break (Poland) Mutek (Canada), BreakOut West (Canada), and MAMA (France) - will each host 6-12 international Keychange participants.

Collection society SACEM will support the French participants and FACTOR, one of the most proactive funding bodies in the world, will support Canadian participants. Finally, SGAE, STEF, STIM, IMRO, SOCAN Foundation, GEMA, Gorwellion Horizons, Smirnoff Equalising Music, Roskilde Festival Songtrust and SoundCloud will all provide support for the extensive programme.

Keychange aims to transform the future of music with a collaborative, border-crossing talent development and capacity building programme. This expanded 2.0 edition of the campaign comes after the unprecedented success of Keychange 1.0 which included the Keychange Pledge, founded by Alex Schulz of Reeperbahn Festival where music organisations are encouraged to achieve a 50/50 gender balance by 2022. 

Over 250 music organisations have now joined the pledge including End of the Road, Bella Union, Winter Jazzfest NYC, the Barbican, the Royal Albert Hall as well as german based record label ferryhouse productions, c/o pop Festival & Convention Cologne and the german radio stations ByteFM and FluxFM. The movement has received extensive support from the music industry including Dua Lipa, Paulette Long, Shirley Manson, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Lauren Mayberry, Nadine Shah, Peaches and Kate Nash.

Alex Schulz, CEO at Reeperbahn Festival: "With Keychange 1.0, we have been addressing the necessity of gender equality in the music business since 2017. Phase 2.0 not only extends Pledge 2022 for balanced line-ups in festivals to other organisations and music sub-markets, such as venues, music radio channels, streaming services, etc., but also our mentoring programmes and workshops as well as the European database, so that our innovators and artists can implement the transformative power of Keychange in the best possible way and carry it out into the world.

In my view, for customising the future orientation of Keychange and for verifying the desired changes and goals, it is indispensable to have valid figures at hand on the current gender ratio, distribution of revenues, etc. in the sub-markets of the music business and the receptive behaviour. At present, we are having talks aimed at commissioning a study for Germany and the EU." 

Joe Frankland, PRS Foundation CEO said, “In Keychange 2.0 there’s a new extensive talent development programme that includes bespoke capacity building workshops at two major full-network meetings. We’ll host a peer mentoring scheme, and even more country partners that will bring more talent to the network, to our partners’ festival stages, and to festivals globally. The huge demand that we’ve experienced for Keychange 1.0 proves the importance of collaboration and as more barriers are being presented, it is more important than ever we work closely internationally and proactively to make change.”

Mia Ternström, Keychange Project Manager, Sweden said, “As a response to ’there is not enough female talent for an equal music industry’, Keychange will create a dynamic spotlight on the future! Based on the talented network of 282 talented women and gender minority participants in Keychange from 2018-2022, the database will stand out as ’the' indispensable tool for the inevitable transformation of the music industry towards balance and use of its full talent."

With the additional implementation of Keychange 2.0, the groundbreaking movement continues to expand its initiative across the globe, working towards obtaining a gender balance within the music industry by 2022.