Breaking the glass ceiling

In the past few years, the music industry has made huge strides towards gender equality – with festival goers advocating for more diverse line-ups and growing representation in all areas, from live to recorded music. But, although we may have come a long way from the days of white men in suits taking up live music spaces, there is still a long way to go, especially within technical roles.

According to the UK Musicians’ Census Women Musicians Insight Report by Help Musicians and Musicians Union, while 79% of women in music were performing musicians in 2024, only 15% of live sound engineers and 12% of studio/mastering engineers were women.

To combat this imbalance, at Generator, we make a point of running programmes with at least 50% of non-male participants and are consistently encouraging more females to join particularly our tech programmes and Open Decks sessions to break down barriers in male-dominated spaces, open doors and work towards making those environments more welcoming for women.

Our mission extends to our national showcases, particularly Kendal Calling, where we have the opportunity to bring along not only performing artists but also participants on our Technical Skills Programme to work behind the scenes and support professional light and sound engineers on the day.

“Kendal Calling is one of the highlights in our calendar every year! Taking the students to learn and work at a major UK festival is nothing short of incredible. This opportunity gives the crew the chance to combine the learning from the Technical Skills for the Live Sector Course and put it into practice on a live, working festival stage. It’s critical that backstage and technical roles are available and accessible to everyone without restriction. It’s such a thrill witnessing the students and crew grow in confidence each week, develop their learning and coming together to support the production of the Roots Stage at Kendal Calling” , Programme Coordinator Emily says of this unique opportunity. ...

In order to challenge the status-quo, and drive lasting change, it’s important for women to band together – One of the leading communities for women in production roles is NOWIE (Network of Women in Events), founded with the intention of reshaping the live events industry through bold research, career support and providing a safe and empowering environment built by women, for women.

As part of their mission to understand the unique challenges that women face in production roles, NOWIE have conducted a research piece – the ‘Big Survey’ – that explores issues including gender discrimination, sexual harassment and family planning in order to tackle specific areas head-on and create a more inclusive work environment. “We created the Big Survey to give us, and others, the hard data we need to take action,” NOWIE Director Cat Kevern explains. The data shows that 57% of women working in events feel their income does not fairly reflect their work and only 8% of women are in director-level roles – showing that the glass-ceiling is still very much in place. “The Big Survey will allow us to target our efforts at NOWIE towards the specific issues most affecting our community,” she continues. “It will also enable us to demonstrate the scale of these issues to others, helping us garner more support, funding and inspire policy change in these areas.”

In 2025, the work is far from done, but with combined effort, women are slowly reshaping the events industry and turning production roles into less intimidating, more accessible career paths. We strongly believe that everyone deserves a seat at the table and continue to work towards creating more opportunities for women to move into production roles.

If you would like to learn more about our Technical Skills programme and how you can take your first steps into touring and stage management, click here.