CEO Gary Stannett reflects on an event that left everyone excited for the future.
Video reflections from the ‘Into the Music industry partnership event at the University of Salford on March 11th.
Last week (Friday 10th March 2023) we announced our three-year partnership extension with Warner Music UK and Warner Music Ireland, a major milestone that will allow us to deliver projects against several social and economic issues and policy areas, including the wider 'levelling up' agenda. Importantly this partnership extension enables us to continue our mission to give young people a platform to influence change, support mental health and resilience, improve social mobility, and ensure greater representation for minority communities in the workplace.
Supporting this partnership is a combined agreement with Kiss FM and Bauer Media, who will continue as our media industry partner over the same period to provide training, careers support and progression pathways in music, sports, broadcast, and other industries that are important in youth culture.
This three-way partnership represents a huge step forward for the Rio Ferdinand Foundation as we seek to support young people from under-represented communities and under-represented groups to build confidence, earn transferable skills, gain qualifications, and understand the opportunities and networks to help them build meaningful careers and achieve their potential.
Not only does this partnership extension provide our team with an opportunity to invest in the depth of support we can offer in our existing hub areas of London, Manchester, and Belfast. We also have the resources to extend our work to other areas of the UK and Ireland over the next three years through an extensive community partnership network in the West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humber and the NorthEast in England and in Dublin, Cork, and Limerick in Ireland.
The partnership launch took place as part of our most recent Into the Industry event in Salford this week, where 150 people participated in workshops, networking, and panel discussions with industry insiders over five hours. An event that created serious energy, discussion and debate that left everyone excited for the future.
Reflecting on the event, there were a few takeaways that our partners need to consider and perhaps others in this field of work might be interested in:
“We need to take our focus on training, support, and opportunity away from the big metropolitan hubs and into smaller cities and towns if we are genuinely thinking about creating greater social mobility and representation.”
Our event was held in Salford, Greater Manchester. Still, personally, I spoke with young people (and, in some cases, their parents) from North Wales, Blackburn, Liverpool and Staffordshire who were keen to get involved in the music and creative industries. Evidently, these people were prepared to travel many miles (in the snow) to get this level of insight and connectivity as they felt nothing was available to them in their own regions. This is a challenge, of course, in terms of being unable to be 'everywhere at once' but one we need to embrace as an organisation to bring real change.
“Young people believe they must move to London to be successful in the music or creative industries.”
Sticking with the theme of diversifying from metropolitan areas, it struck me the number of young people at the event who thought that they would have to move to London to be successful in the music or creative industries.
The broadcaster and author Nihal Arthanayake (himself Stockport based) made the point that there is often an infrastructure available to young people regionally that they are not aware of, but also that in the current climate, business looks much further afield to identify talent and the importance of doing your own thing locally has never been greater.
Social media and remote working have created opportunities that never previously existed. Our challenge as a partnership is to make young people aware of those regional opportunities (which is where events like this are useful) but also to empower participants in the programme to utilise those social media tools and harness their ideas, creativity and energy in a way that will help build careers and opportunities.
Lastly, and it should be a given, but unfortunately, that isn't always the case;
“Having panels and professionals that reflected the diversity of the audience was a massive factor in the event’s success. ”
Having people who can share their experiences of growing up, challenges and experiences in a relatable way – even across generations – made for some very open and lively conversations. It may sound like an obvious comment, but we have all attended events where the disconnect between speakers and the audience has been uncomfortable.
Oh, and one last takeaway, I think – our expert panel in the last session all started their working life on a paper round (not always successfully!), so perhaps there's a field of research for someone there!
Big thanks to everyone at New Adelphi Theatre Salford, University of Salford, Warner Music UK, Kiss FM and, of course, our fantastic team and volunteers who worked their Saturday and sometimes travelled long distances to support. Brilliant event, folks.
And a huge thanks to all the participants who got involved, asked some great questions, and created such a brilliant buzz for the whole day. We all learned from each other and came away from the event with new ideas and information.
Looking forward to delivering our training and opportunities in the Northwest!
Gary Stannett MBE
CEO Rio Ferdinand Foundation