Inequity in the Events Industry: Part I
Hello, my name is Owen, I’ve been with Ivy Hill for a year now working on our community functions: our social media channels, the Community Calendar, and our Community Blog. This blog post is a collaboration between myself and two other members of the Ivy team - AMP Oakland Series Director Rashida Chase and Booking Manager Wesley Woo.
We wanted to use this blog post to address a topic that many in the events industry are aware of, but don’t frequently discuss. Racial inequality is woven into the fabric of our industry in the same way that it is woven into so many other aspects of American society.
As Antwone Stigall, the Memphis-based founder of the Black Meeting & Event Professionals group on Facebook has said:
“The lack of racial diversity in our industry is still the giant elephant in the room.”
We as an organization have felt this since Ivy Hill was founded in 2014, particularly so as a company founded by White men.
We hope to change this, and have been meeting in recent months to be able to share with you, our Bay Area community, what we plan to do (and have done so far) to be the change that we would like to see in the industry.
As an Oakland company founded upon a diverse community, we feel an extra sense of urgency to address this issue.
Here is what we have done up to this point:
In 2019 we partnered with the City of Oakland on the Downtown Oakland AMP outdoor lunchtime music series, which gave us the opportunity to:
Bring on Rashida Chase to book the AMP series, which hosted over 175 performances in 2019, with 3-8 artists every week from May 1st to October 31st. Rashida is an Oakland native and is a prominent leader in Oakland's Black creative communities.
and
Ensure, with Rashida’s network, that we include as many of the Bay Area’s Black musicians in the series as possible. The series hosted nearly 50 Black artists from a wide range of age groups and genres, from legendary industry veteran Lady Bianca to up-and-coming rapper Tone Oliver.
During the pandemic we rebooted our Artist Workshop Series with a free online Bio Writing for Musicians workshop. This series will continue with 100% free music industry workshops open to all. We hope to continue holding these in person, too, when the time is right.
Here is what we are doing next:
We are creating an open call for new artists to join our roster, effective now! BIPOC individuals and bands move to the front of the line.
Subsidized photo and video shoots, where Ivy will join artists to pool resources, and book professional photographers and/or videographers for headshots, videos, and other website content.
Video interviews with a diverse range of Bay Area musicians on their lived experiences, including Black artists.
This blog post is the first in a series on bringing racial justice into the wedding and events space. Look for upcoming posts and conversations on Black music, cultural appropriation vs. cultural appreciation, social networking, and other topics coming in the coming months.