Women And The Road 3: Putting Talk To Action With Unveiling Of ‘Safe Tour’

Black Coffee Productions – Women & The Road 3
ON THE ROAD AGAIN: Women Nation President Ali Harnell (R) leads the third edition of Women & The Road with panelists (L-R) Sarah Bollwinkel, Paradigm Agency; Kelly Clague, EM.co; Jessica Koravos, OVG International/Really Useful Group; Lesley Olenik, Live Nation; and Lindsey Sokol, Blue Norther Live

During the third iteration of Pollstar Live!’s “Women & The Road” series, action matched talk about women on the road as moderator Ali Harnell introduced Tim McGraw manager Kelly Clague, who unveiled the “Safe Tour” initiative, a program to accredit tours to ensure safe and equitable work space for women working on tours.

“People used to say things like, ‘Why would a woman want to sweat and run. So silly,’” Clague, an attorney, said of people questioning why women would want to be involved in touring and production. Noting there’s never been Human Resources on the road, she adds, “The way HR works on the road is you are at the mercy of the tour manager, the production manager, and they may think things are working really well, and it’s not. There’s no data about how that’s working.

“One of the points to Safe Tours is that times have changed. We have protocols about using social media: If you are third sound tech, you know what you can’t post on social media. Yet here we are, 100 people sleeping a foot apart, stacked three deep, and no idea how to treat each other. We want to establish something new – you’re not going to get a bunch of crusty roadies watching videos of women in shoulder pads talking about how to treat women in the boardroom. … Now we teach people what’s expected of them and how to treat each other. There should not be a woman or minority who loves production but doesn’t feel all that safe out there.”

Paradigm Talent Agency’s Sara Bollwinkel praised mentor and colleague Corrie Christopher Martin for telling her she had what it took to book and develop artists and making sure those who make those promotion decisions knew it, too. The confidence she gained helped her to champion client Billie Eilish.

“Corrie Christopher Martin was my champion,” Bollwinkel says. “I started in the contracts department and didn’t have a voice. But Corrie did. Thank you, Corrie. I needed it to get to that next level and I needed to overcome that challenge. Now I need to put that confidence away sometimes. We need to instill it in young women. We need to prepare execs to train young women, and to tell them this is something you can do if you desire.”

Live Nation’s Lesley Olenik was introduced as a “badass woman, killing it, does it all.” She explained how she changed employers, jobs (including as a club bartender), and with the help of mentors including Nederlander Concerts’ Alex Hodges, she went from booking tiny clubs to sellout arena shows for – guess who? – Billie Eilish.

“I’ve always had to tell myself I’m just as good and important as the men in developing artists,” Olenik says. “You have to change the mindset, own it, and know that you deserve to be there. You also have to love yourself mor than everyone else. If you can’t take care of yourself you can’t take care of other people. As I start taking care of myself more, working out, reading a book, doing things for me, then I can be better at my job, be a better mom, better wife, and a better friend. Be your best self.”

Blue Norther Live founder Lindsey Sokol started her career “handing out food tickets” at Austin City Limits festival as an intern at C3 Presents and “decided to jump off a cliff and bet on herself and start her own company,” as Harnell introduced her.

“Learning from the bottom is the best thing that allowed me to be what I am today,” Sokol says. “I learned with a company (C3 Presents) that was growing as I was growing. It was 34 people when I started and over 200 now, and has become international. I’ve been able to grow with the production world. When I left last year, I took a giant leap start my own company in Austin.”

Jessica Koravos, co-chair of Oak View Group International and president of Really Useful Group, works at getting more women into the live pipeline and advancing them.

“I was with Anschutz before there was AEG,” says Koravos, who started as a junior lawyer but was eventually asked to lead the Millennium project in London. “I was almost always the only woman in the room,” she explains about why it’s important to have more. “ As for moving to Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Really Useful Group, “going to theater was more diverse. The ability to be more yourself and say what you want to say when the focus of being ‘the only’ in the room is off you.”

Harnell ticked off a list of statistics about the dearth of women and people of color in the live industry, underscoring that, despite gains made, there’s a long road ahead in terms of diversity and inclusion. “Imposter syndrome” – the self-doubt that causes some to believe they somehow don’t deserve their success and fear they don’t deserve it – continues to haunt many women despite their success.

“Even for me, and I’ve been in the business for more than 30 years working with legends like Ron Delsener and Louie Messina, and stand in authenticity, have a thing where I ask what I’m doing here,” Harnell says. “For many women, standing up in a room and figuring out her voice without thinking, ‘Why  should I be able to do that?’ That mindset? It’s because that old school is it still a thing.”

Bollwinkel came back to remind the audience that “you don’t have to be a badass all day long. You don’t have to be on all that time. The imposter thing is real. But I was something before I was an agent. I was a musician; an artist. I learned how to build car engines.”