A series of live music events centralising women, both on and off the stage, has been launched in Liverpool.
The events will be based around promoting women in the music industry and will be organised and led by women, showcasing local women artists.
They will also be staffed by women; from sound engineers, photographers, promoters, door staff, and bar staff.
All events will be held at 24 Kitchen Street in collaboration with the collective ‘Where are the girl bands?’
Lorna Dougherty, who is leading the project, hopes that the events will raise awareness and make women orientated events more of a norm.
She also hopes that they will empower women, giving them confidence to excel in the music industry.
Lorna, 24, said: ”I just thought as a woman who works in the music industry there’s just nowhere near as many opportunities or things available for us, and you rarely see a full woman line up – and if you do, it’s often ran by men.
”To have a full male line up and have everything done by men is just the standard, it’s so good that this is getting done, but why’s it so completely out the norm?”
The events will include many local female and vibrant artists, with various different music genres, varying from jazz, soul, hiphop, R&B, punk and indie.
Lorna is a Bar Manager and Live Bookings Coordinator at 24 Kitchen Street and organised the events with two other women, Ella and Eve, from ‘Where are the girl bands?‘
The trio have been planning the events for six weeks and announced the launching of them on 8 March which was International Women’s Day 2021.
Lorna added: ”At first, it was planning when we were going to do it because we didn’t have any set dates of when we were going to be able to put it on because of social distancing and stuff.
”As soon as the announcement came, we could confirm a date and artists.”
Lorna and Where are the girl bands? have future plans to showcase artwork by local women and create merchandise to sell at the events.
They have also had other ideas such as providing experience to those women who are interested in the music industry but have no experience, as well as an IGTV series.
Lorna said: ”It’s obviously so lovely that I’ve been able to work on it, and I’m so proud of me and the girls for doing it, but I hate this is not a common occurrence, so I hope it starts a chain.”
There are other women promoters who share Lorna and Where are the girl bands? goals and have also led events in the past themselves, such as Sis Bis, and We Want Women.
The first event is planned for 10 June 2021 with live soul and jazz singer iamkyami.
