Equity beyond the checklist: inside Keychange’s intersectional approach

Words: Ilona Deuring (Project Manager European Talent Exchange and DEIA Coordinator ESNS)

Music has always been a place where everyone can express themselves and let their voices be heard. But the world and the music industry are not an equal playing field. For many years, women and gender diverse people have raised awareness about gender inequality on and off stage in the music sector.

This gender divide still prevails, and women, trans and non-binary people remain underrepresented in almost every field within the live music sector, from boardrooms to stages. Keychange is a movement that advocates for a more inclusive music industry. The Keychange Pledge was launched in 2017 to activate the live music industry to take action, setting a target of programming at least 50% women for line-ups and panels by 2022.

Keychange team members Christina Hazboun (Advocacy and Knowledge Manager, co-pledge manager), Aysha Hussain (Research Manager, co-pledge manager), Salomé Besse (General Director of Keychange and Project Manager at Europavox Festival) and Lea Karwoth (Project Manager, Keychange and Reeperbahn Festival) share insights on the Pledge's evolution and its latest findings.

An intersectional evolution

The Keychange Pledge quickly evolved to address how gender imbalance is inextricably linked to broader issues in the music industry. “The intersectional shift of the Pledge grew out of the 2023 action plan and the recognition that the 50/50 binary goal was no longer enough,” Christina Hazboun explains. “The move was driven by the need to include all genders, abilities, racial, socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds and environmental considerations.”

This update was collaborative and bottom-up: signatories agreed on relevant intersectional examples based on their local context rather than being forced into a universal model. This means every organisation set their own goals and reports on the progress that they have made when it comes to equity. Pledge signatories now encompass more than 750 organisations, of which around half are music festivals.

The data dilemma

Aysha Hussain notes that intersectional data collection is not equally possible in every country because of legal restrictions on what data can be recorded. Salomé adds: “France is a clear example of a legal context where ethnic-background statistics are strictly restricted. Direct racial or ethnic self-categorisation is prohibited by law, which makes genuine intersectional monitoring difficult even when the festival wants to do more.” Organisations sometimes work around these legal limits through transparent disclaimers and voluntary disclosure frameworks that still protect participants.

How festivals approach intersectionality

As a founding partner of Keychange, Germany’s Reeperbahn Festival used the Pledge internally to move beyond the 50/50 gender balance goal. The festival expanded its commitment through all programming areas, from the lineup to conference panel speakers and accessibility. The conference tracks the speaking time of the panellists by gender, which revealed that women and gender diverse people had significantly less speaking time than their male panellists. This led to critical interventions in the conference programming, and discussions were held to reinforce awareness and accountability of this issue.

The major challenge for Reeperbahn Festival in improving its intersectional approach was physical accessibility. The event uses Hamburg’s existing venue infrastructure, which limits what the festival can do to ensure safe access. “Concrete actions were taken, such as barrier-free entry design for stages, an awareness team on site, staff training and conference sessions that extend learning beyond the festival itself,” Project Manager Lea Karwoth of Reeperbahn Festival and Keychange says.

Meanwhile, France’s Europavox Festival (also a Pledge signatory) embeds diversity in its programming through different selection layers, including selection committees. Gender balanced programming has been ensured for many years, and intersectionality is also implemented in staffing, partnership decisions and policy. Europavox Project Manager and Keychange General Director Salomé Besse explains: “Europavox Festival frames its work through three sustainability pillars: economic, social and environmental. The social pillar is where gender balance and intersectionality are directly addressed.”

2023-2025 Key findings

Every year, signatories are asked to report on their progress and map the challenges they face while working towards these goals. Those are analysed by Professor Pauwke Berkers of Erasmus University to feed into the annual Pledge report. Keychange presented these findings in the Keychange Pledge Report 2023-2025. While most signatories still work towards gender diversity in a non-intersectional way, the report states that 32% now take the intersectional approach.

The geographic breakdown of the signatories shows a heavy concentration in the UK and Germany, which account for more than 50% of the signatories. This heavy concentration initially reflects the footprint of the Pledge’s founding partners. To ensure the initiative is genuinely inclusive and globally impactful, there is a critical need to expand representation across underrepresented territories.

The report reveals that more than half of registered Pledge signatories reached (or partially reached) the gender balance target. But also that the actual numbers paint a different picture. For example, more than 70% of venues and festivals have booked at least one act with a gender-diverse member in 2023 and 2024. But when looking at the individual artists in those acts, only 25% are gender-diverse. On a positive note, nearly one-third of signatories reported festival lineups headlined by women or gender-diverse artists, which indicates meaningful progress in visibility.

For conferences, gender balance is achieved for most signatories (70%). However, Research Manager Aysha Hussain points out a discrepancy: “Speaker representation can look very different from moderator representation: Where speakers were largely women and gender-diverse people but moderators of panels remained heavily male-dominated.”

Additionally, signatories are increasingly embedding gender equity backstage. This shift is particularly visible in roles such as sound engineering and production management, where women and gender-diverse people remain underrepresented.

To reach a full gender balance, signatories cite barriers such as the limited availability of female instrumentalists and the underrepresentation of gender-diverse people in technical and data roles. External forces beyond a festival’s control, like sponsors and the reigning government, can push gender diversity and equity commitments down the priority list.

Impact beyond the numbers

While the numbers in the report give great insight into what is happening when it comes to the status of the signatories reaching their goals, the main impact is often indirect.

Lea Karwoth emphasises that the most important impacts are internal; what an organisation promotes publicly also shapes recruitment, values, and behaviour within the team. “The Pledge can therefore influence an organisation’s identity even among staff who do not work directly with Keychange.” She also describes a ripple effect on stakeholders and partners, where they are encouraged to offer more diverse lineups and inclusive practices.

Salomé Besse adds that international networks and European projects provide a vital support system for organisations facing the same challenges, enabling them to share methods and solutions, especially when resources are limited, and the political climate is less supportive.

Simply discussing the Pledge can prompt organisations to pause and reflect on who they are, what they look like internally, even before the signing stage, Aysha Hussain notes. “The pandemic created a moment of reflection that temporarily increased signups, while the post-COVID and current economic downturn have slowed momentum.”

To conclude, Keychange team member Christina Hazboun explains that hands-on workshops held at music conferences build the individual connections and awareness that are needed for lasting change. It helps participants see that the Keychange Pledge is not just about organisations, “but about the relationship between the festival, the community, and society at large.”

The full Keychange Pledge Report 2023-2025 can be accessed via keychange.eu