Brisbane’s Bigsound roars back to life amid Raising Their Voices report revelations

Attendees at the annual Bigsound conference and festival will likely be on their best behaviour, following a landmark report that recently detailed a shocking, shameful side of working in music.

Industry leaders Annabelle Herd and Dean Ormston. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Bigsound has earned a reputation as the Australian music industry’s biggest party, where days are spent discussing hot topics and nights are spent gig-hopping between packed venues, as fans and talent scouts search for the next big thing.

This week in Brisbane, it’s likely many attendees at the annual conference and festival will be on their best behaviour in light of a landmark report that recently detailed a shameful side of working in music.

With Bigsound held for the first time since 2019 because of Covid, more than 180 artists will perform on 23 stages across 21 venues over three nights in Fortitude Valley.

During the day, Bigsound’s conference stream is packed with thought-provoking discussions, including this eyebrow-raising proposition: Was the pandemic actually good for the industry?

Among keynote speakers on Thursday will be ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd, who will reflect on 18 months of seismic cultural changes within the sector after joining with fresh eyes following more than two decades working in television and politics.

“I really want to maintain that outsider perspective,” Herd told The Australian.

“Most people in the industry have worked in the industry for a long time; it’s their life and their passion, which is a wonderful thing. But it does mean we are much more inward-focused than a lot of similar industries that are about connecting with mass ­audiences.”

Last week, a report titled Raising Their Voices shone a light on the high prevalence of bullying, sexual harm, discrimination, alcohol abuse and unsafe workplaces within the music sector, according to more than 1600 workers who responded to the independent review.

“Nobody can argue with what is set out in that report, and the picture it paints of the industry is not one that I would want to work in – or that anybody else would want to work in, honestly,” Herd said.

Its publication last Thursday triggered a joint statement of apology from industry leaders including ARIA, APRA AMCOS, Frontier Touring and Live Nation, as well as record labels including Sony, Universal, Warner and Mushroom.

“I think it’s important for ­people who’ve been victims of any form of harassment – from bullying all the way through to sexual harassment – to hear ‘sorry’, and the industry needs to be bigger and better than that,” APRA AMCOS chief executive Dean Ormston told The Australian.

“We should aim to be the safest Australian industry, and the way we will get to that is when there are more women, more people of colour, more First Nations people, and more LGBTIQ people [working],” said Ormston.

“When you look across the industry and you see all of that, then you raise the bar, and it shows that we are safe and open for everybody.”