Smirnoff Sound Collective announces its ‘Equalising Music’ Initiative

Celebrating a landmark ten year anniversary this year in May, The International Music Summit (IMS) in Ibiza once again brought forward some of the key issues facing the electronic music industry in 2017.

Chief amongst these are the gender imbalances in studios and on festival / party line-ups (only 17% of festival headliners are female and only 5% of producers). Smirnoff Sound Collective has announced their ‘Equalising Music’ Initiative, to try and set about addressing the issue head on and has committed to doubling the number of female headliners by 2020, supported by a committee including representatives from IMS, AFEM and SheSaid.So.

“At and with International Music Summit we were keen to get to the bottom of this deep-rooted disparity issue and develop a long term and ongoing plan to help balance the ratio,” said Leila Fataar, Head of Culture & Entertainment at Diageo. “By connecting our Smirnoff Sound Collective platform with the IMS we have brought together some of the most forward-thinking people in the industry with a clear objective: finding solutions to gender disparity in Electronic Music. From on-going conversations with key people from the industry, it is clear that there is not a one fix-all solution. Instead a variety important steps need to be taken – from grassroots to executive level, from single people to corporate companies, it will take the industry as a whole to sort this. We, as Smirnoff are open to and will support breaking ideas and initiatives from DJs, companies, media, labels, individual players, managers, bookers and many other people involved in the scene to shape a plan together. More details soon.”