Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tracy Lane. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Tracy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard.
As a woman who began working in the live music industry in the 1990s, I am concerned about the lack of progress that has been made in the past 30 years when it comes to a safe working environment. Because of the harassment and assault that I experienced while working in the live music industry, I chose to give up my career when I became a mother in 1999. The “it’s just rock and roll” attitude needs to end. For the remainder of my working life, I am committed to advocating for a music industry in which women, men, and nonbinary individuals are respected and paid equally and can work in our industry without fear of sexual harassment or assault.
Tracy, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Treeline Music Fest is the only independently-female-owned music festival owned and operated by women. My business partner, In December of 2019, Shay Jasper and I formed Trio Presents, LLC for the purpose of purchasing the rights to operate Columbia Missouri’s 13-year-old live music event, The Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival. We had served as co-directors under the previous owner, and when he announced his plan to retire, she and I saw an opportunity to grow this event into a festival that appeals to a much broader audience by diversifying the artists, musical genres, and culinary fare presented at this event. We have intentionally hired women to serve in roles that are traditionally held by men, particularly in technical and security positions, and we pay them equitably. These changes have been incremental throughout the past three years, leading up to a full branding and name change in February 2023.
We’d appreciate any insights you can share with us about buying a business.
We spent a year developing a business model to achieve positive growth for the workers and the consumers in our industry, one that we hoped other leaders in our industry would follow, We defined our company on the basis of two primary goals: to create a safer and more equitable live music space for those who work in this industry and to remove the barriers that surround access for the live music audience. Just three months after forming our company, the entire live entertainment industry was shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We were unable to operate or to generate any revenue for 19 months. We had weighed what we considered to be every possible risk and had made a conscious choice to invest our life savings in a risky industry. However, we did not factor in the possibility of a global shutdown of our industry when we chose to invest our lives and livelihoods in this business venture, This was frankly terrifying at the time, but looking back now, I can appreciate the gift of time we received to fully analyze every aspect of our work. When we presented our first event in 2021, rather than 2020, it was received by our industry and our audience with a genuine appreciation for those changes we implemented between our predecessor’s 13 years of operations and our first.
We prioritized changes to make everyone feel safer, both backstage and front-of-house. In our planning, we had candid conversations with women who have toured extensively about what they’d like to see differently. in a live music space The unanimous response was a safer working environment. Many of the women we spoke to expressed their concerns about being the only woman backstage. Having done some touring as a crew member in the past, their concern was achingly familiar to me. This included contracting with a 50% female-owned event security company whose employment practices prioritize race and gender diversity. We also moved the needle forward with regard to safety and equity behind the scenes by hiring a diverse staff that included women and non-binary individuals in security, artist relations, and production roles. For 2021, safety planning included implementing COVID-19 protocols that we felt would not cause the spread of the virus. We required everyone who worked on-site, including volunteers, food vendors, and even the contractors who installed our infrastructure, to be fully vaccinated in advance of their first day working on-site.
A community event should reflect the whole community regardless of age, race, gender, ability, or sexual orientation. In an effort to develop a more inclusive audience, we have been very intentional about curating our lineup with artists whose values align with our own. It’s vital to Shay and me that this event be a multi-generational music experience, a place where you’d feel safe to bring your grandparents and young children. We rent fifty acres of a city park for our festival, so there is plenty of space for families to spread out on a blanket to see and hear the stages at the bottom of the hill, and there’s still plenty of room for those who want the up-close intensity in front of the stage as well. We enhanced our festival environment to include 20 accessible carts and drivers to move anyone in need of mobility assistance from their vehicle in the parking lot to anywhere throughout the festival grounds. All children 14 and under may attend our festival free of charge if they are accompanied by an adult. Additionally, we donated 500 free weekend passes to local low-income families, so that income was not a barrier to attending our event. We worked with a local hospital system to provide a nursing parents’ station which provides multiple separate bays for parents to feed their infants in a quiet, comfortable, temperature-controlled space.
We also chose to spotlight the gender disparity on festival stages. We researched statistics to find that less than 20% of artists performing at US festivals in 2019 identified as female or non-binary, (source Book More Women). So we decided that rather than talk about this inequity, we’d do something to offset it. We booked 26 female-led artists for every spot on our 2021 stages. We also addressed the live music industry gender pay gap with equitable pay for artists and staff. Since 2021, all of the practices and protocols we’ve established in support of a safer and more inclusive music festival experience continue to be the centerpiece of our vision for the future. We also make an intentional effort to include female headlining artists each year, who continue to create compelling art in their 50s, 60s, 70s and even 80s, in the case of dear Mavis Staples, who is going strong at 83.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
The diversification of our artist lineup has profoundly expanded our audience. The previous iterations of this event presented a majority of white men on stage, and the audience composition was nearly 70% white men over the age of 50. In 2022, our demographics reflected the age and racial composition of our community, with slightly more women than men in our overall attendance.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.treelinemusicfest.com
- Instagram: @treelinemusicfest
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/treelinemusicfest
- Twitter: @treelinemusicfest
- Other: vimeo: https://vimeo.com/849187063
Image Credits
Rebecca Allen Photography