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Diversity & Inclusion Toolset

Just like the toolset you keep in your supply closet, this toolset is supposed to help you build something. Only, we’re not talking about assembling shelves and wardrobes here, but festivals. More specifically: festivals that are for everyone. 

On paper, most festivals already seem to be open for everyone. But if we are really honest with ourselves, we know there are still people who don’t come to our festivals, although they would like to. For example, because we forgot to post access information on our website, because they feel as if they wouldn’t fit in, or they’re afraid they’ll be harassed for being different. The same applies to potential employees who would like to work in our teams and artists that would like to perform on our stages.

Please note: This toolset deals with discrimination in many forms, including sexual harassment and assault. Although we don’t talk about specific cases, the texts might trigger unpleasant memories or past trauma. Please consider if this is the right topic for you at the moment, and take a break from reading if you feel unwell.

This toolset is full of resources that can help you create more inclusive and diverse festivals – for the audience, artists and your own team. Resources include guides, tests, checklists, interviews, databases, toolkits, roadmaps, reports, games and action plans. Most were created by different expert organizations all across Europe and sometimes even beyond. 

Other contents were created by the project team, e.g., 13 stories of festivals and projects that have implemented measures for more inclusion and diversity. We wrote these stories, so you can find inspiration and learn more about good-practices that you can replicate at your own festival.

Each resource and story is introduced with a few key facts, a teaser of the contents, and a link to yourope.org. There, you will find full texts explaining the tools and good-practice examples in detail, as well as download links of the resources.

Although different types of discrimination (e.g. relating to ethnicity, gender or disability) often overlap, we tried to give this toolkit a structure by dividing the tools into chapters dedicated to different forms of discrimination. 

Three chapters cover strategies to counter ableist, racist, sexist and gender-based discrimination. A chapter is dedicated to creating more consciousness and awareness around diversity topics; another one talks about allyship – how can we fight discrimination, even if we are not the target of discrimination ourselves? The last chapter contains our inspirational good-practice stories.

In this toolset, we use some acronyms and terms that are not self-explanatory. Instead of explaining them each time we use them, we have assembled a glossary. If you don’t know what “FLINTA*”, “ableism”, “PwD”, and “BIPoC” means, don’t worry! We explain it to you in our glossary. You can even find a longer version with more terms online.

Plus, we have written a ‘Diversity Mission Statement’ that you are free to copy and adapt to your own festival. With this mission statement, you publicly declare your dedication to creating a more diverse and inclusive festival and set the course for your organization. 

This toolset was developed by a team of event professionals and experts on different diversity and inclusion topics from the YOUROPE network. Although its members come from six different countries, we were painfully aware that our group consisted largely of white, hetero, cis-gendered people without disabilities. To check our own unconscious biases, we put together an advisory board of external experts from different countries and backgrounds that have experienced discrimination themselves, e.g., because they are black, queer or have a disability. They reviewed our texts to make sure they are representative of the groups of people this toolkit is dedicated to.


Chapter 1: Inclusion & Accessibility

4 paths to accessibility – a checklist

Learn about Roskilde Festival’s checklist of the four paths to accessibility: places where we can remove barriers for people with disabilities.

Australian Guide To Accessible Events

The guide assists festivals in becoming more inclusive and accessible to people with disabilities.

Canadian Guide to Accessible Festivals

This guide offers some relatively simple solutions to improve the accessibility of events.

Guide: ‘Access Starts Online’

Access Starts Online is a digital campaign which provides festivals and venues with respective guides and templates for creating clear access information on their websites. 

Guide: Accessibility when Recruiting Volunteers

This is a guide aimed at team leaders and recruiters to help them make the process of recruiting volunteers more inclusive.

Höme x NØRDEN – Accessibility Guide

A comprehensive collection of good-practice tips to make your festival more accessible, taking into consideration different budgets and types of organizations.

Inclusion & Diversity: Glossary

If you don’t know what “FLINTA*”, “ableism”, “PwD”, and “BIPoC” means, check out this glossary on various diversity and inclusion topics.

Interview with influencer Life on Wheelz

The interabled couple Wojtek and Agata Sawiccy (Life on Wheelz) explained to us how to make festivals accessible and what still has to improve in the upcoming years.

Report: Ethnicity & disability in music

Survey responses of Black disabled musicians from the UK revealed that a large majority has experienced racial and ableist discrimination.

Tips on Behaviour: Inclusion & Accessibility

This text contains a checklist to create more accessibility at live events, plus detailed info on what (not) to do when addressing the needs of people with disabilities.

Toolkit: People with disabilities in event sustainability

This toolkit explores how to include people with disabilities in live event sustainability and how to make sustainable solutions accessible for them.


Chapter 2: Anti-Racism Work & Diversity

Guide: 20 actions to diversify the workforce

A short guide with concrete steps to create a more diverse workforce and enhance the wellbeing and employee experience. 

Implicit Association Tests: Discover your Bias

Find out what your hidden biases are in a multitude of areas, e.g. ethnicity and disability.

Inclusion & Diversity: Glossary

If you don’t know what “FLINTA*”, “ableism”, “PwD”, and “BIPoC” means, check out this glossary on various diversity and inclusion topics.

Inclusion Initiative: ‘Diversify the Stage’

The goal of this initiative is to break down the homogeneity of the live music industry by providing underrepresented communities greater access to equal opportunities.

Interview: Rosa Lois Balle Yahiya

Rosa Lois is an expert on representation and discrimination, who founded the Another Life. We talked to her about representation at festivals, anti-racism & more.

Report: ‘Musicians’ Census’ reveals racism

The report discusses regularly occurring racist discrimination, a lack of reporting of such incidents, and the ethnicity pay gap in the music industry.

Report: Ethnicity & disability in music

Survey responses of Black disabled musicians from the UK revealed that a large majority has experienced racial and ableist discrimination.

Swiss Diversity Roadmap encourages taking action

This roadmap aims to guide the music industry in fostering mindfulness and determination against discrimination.

Tips on Behaviour: Anti-racism & Diversity

Checklist with tips that help you bring more cultural and ethnic diversity to your event and to fight racial discrimination at your festival & in your organization.


Chapter 3: Gender & Sexual Equity

‘LGBTQ+ Musicians Insight Report’

This report discusses pervasive challenges, discriminatory practices, and the resulting mental health strains among LGBTQIA+ musicians.

‘LGBTQ+ inclusion guide’ by Making Music

This guide explains how to overcome barriers to including LGBTQIA+ people in music-making. It is aimed at music groups, but can be applied in a wider context. 

‘Nobody Is Normal’ Protocol

This action plan by Primavera Sound includes measures to ensure that everybody can express their gender and sexual identity at the festival freely.

Be the change: Gender equality in music industry

Survey responses from more than 1,650 professionals from 109 countries showed that gender-based discrimination is prevalent and affecting the lives and careers of FLINTA* individuals.

Breaking Barriers for LGBT+ Survivors of Abuse and Violence at Festivals

This 4-page guide presents a practical approach to overcoming barriers when addressing abuse and violence against LGBTQIA+ survivors within festival settings.

GENiE (Gender Equality Networks in Europe)

Supporting gender equality in the music sector is the main objective of the online database GENiE, created by the gender equality activist and researcher Grace Goodwin.

Inclusion & Diversity: Glossary

If you don’t know what “FLINTA*”, “ableism”, “PwD”, and “BIPoC” means, check out this glossary on various diversity and inclusion topics.

Keychange: Working towards Gender Balance

This global movement for gender equality in the music sector offers training, mentoring, network support, and a pledge.

Report: ‘Misogyny in music’

This publication summarises the status quo of female workers in the UK music sector and explains how to improve gender equality in the industry.

Safer Spaces – Festival Safe Space guide

This campaign provides info on how to tackle sexual violence, harassment and assault at festivals. More than 100 festivals have endorsed the best-practice charter published as part of this campaign.

Self-assessment test for gender equality

This self-assessment test by Mujeres en la Industria de la Música enables organisations to check how they are doing in terms of gender equality.

Tips on Behaviour: Gender & Sexual Equity

This text contains a checklist with concrete actions to create safer and more inclusive festival environments, particularly for women, FLINTA* and LGBTQIA+ individuals.

UK Musicians’ Union tools on gender

Learn about six resources for more gender equality by the UK Musician’s Union. Topics: preventing discrimination, developing an anti-sexual harassment policy, appropriate behaviour in the workplace, breastfeeding at work.


Chapter 4: Consciousness & Responsibility

‘Diversity & Equity Action Plan’ – Roskilde Festival

In 2022, Roskilde Festival published this three-year action plan, setting goals for the festival and the organization in three fields: diversity, wellbeing and behaviour.

‘Go/No Go – A Game of Boundaries’

This game helps teams have the tough conversations surrounding boundaries and different lived experiences to foster understanding.

Awareness Concepts

This text explains what an awareness concept should contain and gives examples of existing concepts.

Codes of Conduct: Example Roskilde

A code of conduct communicates which kind of behaviour you want to see at your festival. This text discusses codes of conducts and the example of Roskilde Festival, which has a special, positive approach.

Diversity & Inclusion Mission Statement

Copy and adapt our template to create a diversity mission statement for your festival.

Inclusion & Diversity: Glossary

If you don’t know what “FLINTA*”, “ableism”, “PwD”, and “BIPoC” means, check out this glossary on various diversity and inclusion topics.

Resource Collection: ‘Diversity on Tour’

This database of diversity resources was put together by the well-esteemed tour manager Lotje Horvers.


Chapter 5: Allyship

A Guide to Becoming a Better Ally

This short article gives tips on how to become a better ally, with a particular focus on allyship in the workplace.

Allyship Resources by Amnesty International

Amnesty International Australia has published three guides on allyship, about 1) inclusive language and events, 2) anti-racism work, and 3) raising children as anti-racism allies.

Guide to Allyship

This passion project by a designer and writer explains what an ally is and why allies are necessary, suggests Dos and Don’ts, offers strategies for handling mistakes and apologies.

Inclusion & Diversity: Glossary

If you don’t know what “FLINTA*”, “ableism”, “PwD”, and “BIPoC” means, check out this glossary on various diversity and inclusion topics.


Chapter 6: Good-practice examples

Accessibility: Colours without Barriers Case Study

‘Colours without Barriers’ is Colours of Ostrava’s accessibility scheme. Measures range from ramps to multisensory zones for people with ASD.

Accessibility: Cooltural Festival Case Study

With almost fifty accessibility measures in place, Cooltural Festival is a frontrunner of accessibility at live events.

Accessibility: Possibilize Case Study

Possibilize is an organization promoting “creative accessibility.” Learn more about three of their innovative projects: Sencity, Revelland and Superkracht.

Activism on stage – 3 Case Studies

Three examples of activities at European festivals show the benefits of giving room to activists at festivals.

Diversity & Accessibility: Open’er Festival Case Study

The festival introduced a safer space, is committed to a gender-balanced line-up, and introduced the “YOU x Open’er” campaign, which features festival attendees as “artists”, regardless of their gender, age, or disabilities.

Diversity & Accessibility: Roskilde Case Study

Non-profit Roskilde Festival is a frontrunner when it comes to testing innovative solutions in all areas, including diversity and inclusion.

Diversity & Inclusion: ESNS Case Study

As a conference and showcase festival, ESNS faces challenges in several areas. Some solutions: seeking advice from an external advisory board, doing own research, and participating in Keychange.

Diversity & Inclusion: Fullsteam Case Study

Fullsteam Agency has applied a number of measures to make its festivals and the agency more inclusive, diverse and equal, ranging from the recruitment process to festival audiences and artists.

Diversity jury: Ruissiraati Case Study

Ruisrock has established a jury of young people from all kinds of backgrounds to help keep their festival relevant to young audiences.

Equity: Primavera Sound Case Study

Primavera Sound Barcelona was the first major festival to achieve a gender-balanced line-up. Everyone can come as they are thanks to the “Nobody is Normal Protocol.”

Inclusion & Diversity: For a Change Festival Case Study

For a Change Festival is a rare safer space for LGBTQIA+ individuals in rural Bavaria. The festival equally focuses on the inclusion of FLINTA* and BIPoC individuals, people with disabilities and those with low income.

Inclusion: Station Narva Case Study

Being located on the Estonian border to Russia, Narva is a city of many identities. The festival Station Narva uses culture and music to create a sense of unity among its diverse population. 

Social Ticketing: Boom Festival Case Study

Boom has a truly international audience. To keep the festival affordable even for people from countries with weak economies, Boom uses a social ticketing system.