My early childhood was spent in Papua New Guinea, which contrasted deeply with moving back to South Australia into a conservative country town. I realise as an adult that I experienced years of ‘culture shock’. I spent my school years never fitting in until a youth theatre company was funded in the 1980s at the same time a regional proscenium arch theatre was built in my home town. My first casual job at the age of 15 was working in that theatre as a casual production hand and between that and joining youth theatre as a teen, I found a tribe of people and belonged somewhere.

After school I studied technical production for theatre and paid my way through study by spending nights and weekends doing lighting for local bands and crewing for touring bands. This was in the late 80s and on the touring gigs I was usually the only female on crew and most people didn’t even bother to learn my name. I was just ‘Girlie from Adelaide’. I kept my head down, worked hard and while I was painfully shy, I loved the work and was good at my job.

Once I graduated I worked my way up in the world of theatre as an assistant stage manager, stage manager, and eventually tour manager and production manager. I toured extensively around Australia in the 1990s and with such a flexible production skill set, I moved easily between the theatre and music industries. Early in the 2000’s I was the first female Production Manager for Adelaide Fringe, already then the second largest festival in the world and my career often straddled theatre, major events and arts and music festivals. By then more women were working in technical production and importantly, we were also more visible in management and leadership positions.

Over the years I have held really diverse roles and have loved most of them. As a theatre producer I toured regularly in North America and Asia, including producing a sold-out theatre season on Broadway. I was the founding executive producer for Adelaide’s Guitar Festival for four years, a commercial music programmer at a major performing arts centre, have run small-medium theatre, arts and music organisations and completed post-grad studies in festival and event management. During the pandemic years I worked in senior government policy and program roles in arts and culture and I found my way back to my ‘music roots’ when I joined MusicSA in 2022.

I head up MusicSA, the state’s peak body and advocate for the South Australian contemporary music industry. As CEO I work with the Board and lead the business, and in my on-the-ground capacity, I consult across the ecosystem, facilitate industry development and advocate for the local music industry at all levels of government. I am firmly committed to the idea that strong and thriving state-based grass roots industries are the foundation of a successful national music industry. My role as a CEO is a complex mix of financials and reporting and compliance, linked with industry and program and project development, soft (and occasionally less soft!) diplomacy, highly nuanced stakeholder management, achieving strategic outcomes and managing an awesome collective of industry professionals that make up the incredible team at MusicSA.

I love living and working in South Australia and believe we have a very powerful emerging music scene.  Young people raised in South Australia grow up experiencing some of the most vibrant arts and cultural experiences in Australia – Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide Festival of Arts, WOMADelaide, Feast Festival, SALA Festival, and the list goes on. This immersion in culture has to have an impact on someone choosing to work in the creative industries. I also believe that because SA’s music industry often feels disconnected from the eastern seaboard, we find our own way of thriving and cutting through. South Aussies are determined, resilient and so bloody talented! My role at MusicSA very specifically supports pathways and opportunities for motivated professionals to work in the music industry in/ from South Australia, and to leverage every opportunity for professionals to grow sustainable music careers from here. Its a challenge everyone at MusicSA takes very seriously.

It was never a conscious choice to work in the music industry. I was lucky enough in the very early days to be ‘invited into’ the industry because of my skill set and I was offered jobs that always led to another. But growing up, I have always had a deep, deep love of music and listening to music has been a part of my life always. 

I made more conscious choices to step in and out of the music industry over several decades than’ into it’ as a full timer. It can be an intense industry to work in so sometimes I stepped away to have a breather and recalibrate, and sometimes I said yes to interesting contracts outside of the industry for something different. Eventually I always wandered back. 

I do have to say though, that being older and wiser and looking over my career, I really wish I had seen other women working on the production side or management side of music in my early days. If I have any regrets about my career (and I really don’t have many), it’s that I didn’t have the confidence in myself or a circle of role models to encourage me to take bigger steps into the international production and touring world. I know now – with the benefit of hindsight, age and experience – that I would have made a kickass tour manager/ production manager/ stage manager on those really big touring shows and I would have loved that kind of work. But when I started out, there were just no women visibly doing it so it never occurred to me I could ever possibly do that.

No I don’t and there are plenty of examples of really smart humans that learn on the job in the industry and grow their careers in steps and stages. But I do think higher education can be an important part of skilling up in very particular areas, such as law, business management, commercial enterprise and so on, and there is a discipline learned through higher education that can be really beneficial. But no, its not essential and I don’t believe you can really learn the ‘music industry’ bit from higher education. 

I have had many incredible moments of personal and professional achievement and feel very thankful to have experienced so many amazing moments and worked with so many incredible people along the way. 

Biggest adrenaline rush: quitting first year uni on impulse as a teenager to go on tour with a band and phoning my parents from interstate, admitting to what I had done and letting them know I was safe, then hanging up before they could get really mad at me.

Quiet achievement moment: when I was producing Adelaide Guitar Festival I was invited onto the VIP guest list for my all-time favourite international band when they toured through Radelaide. Inside voice was screaming ‘whaaaaaat the? Did you put my name down by mistake?’

The lowest of the low: watching an entire industry crumble not so many years ago. We don’t need to go there.

South Australia is incredible. It’s small enough to feel comfy and to have a really connected music community that looks out for each other, but large enough to still meet new people and see new artists you’ve never heard of. I mentioned before that we have a stunningly impressive emerging music scene, and I am also learning we have a pool of (not necessarily connected-up) mid and established music industry career professionals working out of SA. If MusicSA can open up that network a bit more and encourage these amazing professionals to connect with our emerging artists and businesses, that would be pure alchemy.

Was that a soapbox you just wheeled in for me? This question gets to the heart of where we’re at in SA right now and the lack of investment at a state level is really a barrier for artists and businesses. We’re just not getting the right level of investment to leverage pathways into the national and global industries or to scaffold sustainable business, and until we do that, we have great local artists and businesses that can’t maximise the opportunities on offer through Music Australia or through more commercial avenues. I describe it as a gulf that exists in the space between where state investment ends and where federal policy and investment begins.

Hell no! Having been around a few big stages again in the last few years, I am not seeing any more women or gender diverse people on large production crews than when I started out four decades ago!  But I do see and feel things changing, especially at the grass roots level, and in emerging and independent artists and businesses. It’s not changing fast enough for people who need to be more heard and visible and definitely more included but change is coming.

The professional peers that I have grown up with and the valued professional colleagues I have collected along the way – I lean into them for advice and constructive feedback and a different perspective. And Alex, my partner. He backs me unconditionally, especially when I’m doubting myself or second guessing something. 

Trust your instincts.

I’ve done Karaoke just once in my life. I warbled through Gold by Spandau Ballet. I was utterly and completely terrible. There’s a reason why working in production just suits some people better.