rider.e is a cooperation between cultural actresses and actors. It’s a participatory and collaborative project where everyone can evaluate and re-think our practices at our scale. Everyone’s engagement is essential, come and join us!

2020: cultural places are closed, tours are canceled, the cultural world has jammed in a deafening silence. However everything was stopped, several voices have raised to break this silence and show up these situations that have been ignored for a while. Step by step, the veil revealed the reality of the violence women go through in the cultural sector, on a professional level, but also in the audiences. The speech has been freed, as shown by the movement #MusicToo since July 2020, or even by the cover of TSUGI magazine’s November 2020 issue, which was a real tsunami bringing to light a neglected reality in the music industry: one in three women working in the music sector has already been a victim of sexual harassment*.

The observation is just as worrying on the other side of the stage: in France, almost one in every two people going to festive places has already confessed to be a victim of sexual assault, and this proportion goes to more than half for women**.

Beyond physical violence, there are also regrettable inequalities and difference in treatment and greeting.

Women’s place in the music industry is at the heart of several questionings, and a number of cultural structures are already working on this topic in a way to tend to equality, and to make sure the music industry becomes a professional field of mutual assistance for all.

Desirous to shake things up but also to federate, Bi:Pole, Act Right and Arty Farty – three structures and associations working in the live performance industry – wish to gather artists, collectives, tour producers and booking agencies, producers, broadcasters and studios already involved or wanting to be involved in this fight against inequalities, but also against sexual orientation based violence, genderbased violence, and sexual assault.

The aim is to quickly stimulate exchanges between these diverse structures, in a way for them to put in common their observations, as well as the existing policies and actions, to bring out new studies and ideas to the above-mentioned actresses and actors, but also to the various suppliers who compose the complete ecosystem of the music industry.

The pooling of all these studies and axes of development will help bringing to light rules, but also procedures and practices, so that all of these structures commit themselves to transmitting this Rider.e to their artists (whether they are on tour, having a residency or in the studio), but also to their technicians and to their greeting and logistics teams.

As a result, a toolbox has been created, inside of which we are able to dig and communicate with all the teams (production, bar, security…) but also to communicate with our audiences.

These diverse prerequisites that every single professional in the sector has to consider led us to the RIDER.E labeling of artistic and technical contracts and to the development of a toolbox in which protocols of actions are provided, in a way to give advice, and to help during the productions. The aim of this process is to engage the ecosystem of the professionals from European cultural sectors in order to move towards a sector that is more respectful of the profession, but also inclusive with minorities and mindful of all other necessary responsibilities, such as environment, social responsibility, etc.

Which element is the most common and the most carefully read by all the different cultural actresses and actors in the sector ?

Whether they work in departments like programming, booking, management, administration, communication, technical, legal, catering, security, cultural actions, studio, volunteer and many other, all these actresses and actors have to carefully read the artists’ technical contracts (also called Riders).

This document is, by nature, the one defining the programmed artist’ technical needs and greeting needs. It’s an essential document delivered by hand, as part of organizing an event, towards all the hierarchical levels of a structure, in all trades. Each request of these technical contracts (sometimes exceeding the limit of the reasonable) has always been respected. Precised requests like “please provide a vegetarian meal suitable for lactose intolerant people…” have always been integrated and respected.

So let’s have no doubt about the relevance of this RIDER.E which now include the essential prerequisites in terms of fighting against sexual orientation and gender based violence and harassment, and for gender equality, which are at the heart of societal debates.

All the cultural actresses and actors holding this document have no choice but to apply the requests that appear therein.