During this year’s Women In Music Awards, we inducted a host of trailblazing industry executives into the Roll Of Honour, in association with TikTok.
They join a huge list of previous honourees, including some of the leading names from across the business like Kanya King, Sarah Stennett, Emma Banks, Charisse Beaumont, Rebecca Allen, Stacey Tang, Shani Gonzales and Mary Anne Hobbs, who have been selected since the awards began in 2014. The Roll Of Honour aims to shine a spotlight on the variety of individuals who are leading the charge in the music industry and consistently using their platforms to support women, or focus on empowerment and gender disparity.
Following the Women In Music Awards ceremony, Music Week is running Q&A interviews with all of this year’s Roll Of Honour inductees.
Based in Liverpool, Becky Ayres is MD at Sound City, the UK’s longest-running new music showcase festival and industry conference. Ayres also leads Sound City’s role as the UK partner for Keychange, the global movement for gender equality in music.
Ayres joined Sound City in 2008, becoming COO in 2012 and MD in 2018, during which time the event has become internationally recognised for platforming new acts, showcasing over 4,000 artists to music fans and industry professionals from more than 40 countries.
This year, Sound City hosted the BPI’s In Tune With Tomorrow conference outside London for the first time and was shortlisted for Festival Of The Year at the Music Week Awards.
Ayres is deeply committed to tackling the barriers to entry into the music business and founded Sound City Launch and Rip It Up, which provide training, mentoring and bursaries for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. She also launched Sound City Satellite: Music Careers Day – a series of 11 events across the Liverpool City Region, giving 1,200 young people aged 14–16 their first insights into the music industry.
Ayres is also working on a new tech platform called Synchronicity, in partnership with Modern Sky Beijing, designed to help Western artists bring their content into China.
Ayres serves as deputy chair of the Liverpool City Region Music Board and is working closely with independent festivals across the UK to help them diversify income streams, attract new funding, and build long-term sustainability.
To celebrate her winning a place on the Roll Of Honour, we hear her industry story and talk grassroots venues, the evolution of tech and more…
What are your reflections on joining the Music Week Women In Music Roll Of Honour?
“I am over the moon and so humbled to be joining such incredible women and female identifying people at such an illustrious awards. It's important for me as a woman based in the North too, to be able to fly the flag and be part of something that celebrates the achievements and work of women everywhere is amazing. While it's a reminder of how far we have come, I am very aware of how much work there is to be done and the challenges we continue to face, so it's a both a privilege and a responsibility for me to use this platform to champion the voices of those who are underrepresented and need to be heard.”
How do you look back on your early years getting into the industry?
“I started out working in magazine advertising when I graduated, working at Condé Nast on Brides Magazine, Vogue and Tatler. Throughout that time I always wanted to work for a label, as I had grown up wanting to be at Fierce Panda because they were always releasing new music, but I didn't know how. The turning point for me was during a very low point when I was at Hachette working on Psychologies magazine and got made redundant and I was also in a controlling relationship that I was very unhappy in. I started looking for other sales jobs and came across one at a music industry conference called London Calling, and my job was to sell delegate passes to international companies. I almost took a job in sales at a software company, but the pay was the same so I went to London Calling which proved to be pivotal in terms of getting my foot in the door of the music industry. It was a very tough sales environment, but I was used to that and it was there that I met Dave Pichilingi, who is Sound City and Modern Sky CEO, on an AIM trade mission to New York. I wanted to work on an event that combined live music with the industry conference side so I told Dave I could sell and asked him for a job, he said yes and that was the start of where I am now, 16 years later!”
Did you have a mentor at that stage?
“I didn't, but I always had a belief that I would work in music eventually and that I would find a way even when I didn't know what it was early on. There's been a few times in my life when things have been really tough and looking back, they have always been pivotal to me taking my next step in the direction of where I wanted to go and to make things happen. I grew up very shy and insecure, but at the same time I always had a belief that I would get into doing what I dreamed of doing. That self-belief and being able to back myself and take action with the knowledge that things will work out have been really important to me. Mentors are invaluable, but if you don't have one, being your own mentor and taking steps towards what you want to do is something that I really want to share as much as I can to help anyone starting out who wants to work in music or has a dream to change where they are now. Since then, Dave Pichilingi has been instrumental in helping me on my path and I have also had a lot of support from Vanessa Bakewell at Meta, Ammo Talwar at UK Music and Punch Records CEO and Nina Kehagia at SheSaidSo. That and the Keychange network are great sources of support and established networks for women and gender diverse young people starting out.”
The Women In Music Awards shines a light on inequality and deep-seated issues around this area in the music industry. Can you share any personal experiences or points of view on this topic?
“Sound City is the UK lead festival for Keychange and every year we make sure that our artist line-ups, conference, training programmes, company and board are gender balanced. It's so vital that we lead the way in this as, around the world, women and female identifying people still face massive inequalities and you can't be what you can't see. Gender equality and all the intersectional characteristics of class, race, disability and so on are not on the agenda in the same way now as they were when Sound City became the lead Keychange festival in 2017. You only have to look at festival line-ups from the multinational promoters to see this and the way that multinational companies are rolling back on their commitments to support ED&I is frightening. As an independent company, it's vital that we continue to champion gender and all equalities and to work with Keychange who are fantastic in providing support, mentorship and opportunities for women and gender diverse individuals globally. Through championing female artists across all tiers of the artist bill we have seen our headliners like Maisie Peters going on to play the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury, Beabadoobee get nominated for a BRIT Award and Olivia Dean doing her first stadium tour. That support in elevating female artists is integral and that's why Keychange is so important.”
Sound City established itself as a platform for emerging acts, but is now celebrated for mentorship, finding opportunities for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and much more. What drove you to bring all these things under its umbrella?
“I was very lucky that I grew up in a middle class family and was supported to go to university and follow any path I wanted to go for in life. But for anyone who doesn't have this, there are so many barriers in the way. At Sound City, our mission is to dismantle the barriers that young people face to making and or having a career in music. We work with Youth Music a lot to support young people from all backgrounds to have a career in music. They produce incredible reports on the barriers that young people face, and in their recent Born Into Music, Locked Out Of Power report, they cite that young people from global majority backgrounds are underrepresented in leadership roles despite their strong cultural connection to music, while lower-income young people face significant financial barriers to music-making. Additionally, a decline in youth music spaces and funding for arts education contributes to a growing equality gap, particularly affecting areas like the North of England.
“It's so important that people like myself who are established in the industry give back to support young people coming into it, and in fact, not just young people, but mums returning to work who might have the skills but not the access. Youth Music are doing exceptional work in highlighting this and I am passionate about advocating for this and supporting the development of young people's career pathways through my work and Sound City, which has a young audience. The programmes we run are all about ensuring that everyone can experience the power of music and have a career in it regardless of their background. We have seen artists like Brad Kella, who just had a No.1 album in the classical charts, The Lottery Winners, who have had two No.1 albums, the Mysterines, Miles Temp, Fiona Lennon, Crawlers and more come through these programmes and use them to start their careers.”
The music industry can feel like a closed shop sometimes, but it needs young talent and if you keep asking and persisting you will succeed
Becky Ayres
The festival is also very tech-focused – what is the main way that events such as yours should be using tech to their advantage to safeguard their future?
“Using tech like ticket platforms and surveys, bespoke apps to reach audiences and ask questions about how they engage with the festival and what they love and don't love about it is vital to understand behaviours to be able to target the right types of income for festivals. We work with the Gigseekr app and we are able to understand a lot about the audience habits and where they go throughout the festival through the app. The Association Of Independent Festivals released a report last year that showed that over 200 festivals had disappeared since the pandemic and it was all due to their business models. Sound City is growing its income streams in addition to ticket sales and takes advantage of the opportunities from different types of sponsorship and earned income, funding, infrastructure and individual giving. These are the ways that festivals can become sustainable financially, which is vital to safeguarding their futures.”
What is your take on the current situation facing grassroots venues in the UK?
“The situation for independent grassroots venues continues to be incredibly tough and it's so important that events like Sound City continue to champion new artists that attract the types of audiences that love going to grassroots venues. It's vital that everyone in the ecosystem around grassroots venues does what is in their power to support them, whether that’s local authorities relieving business rates, or implementing the Agent Of Change principle and making it enforceable to help them as much as they can. What Andy Burnham has done in Manchester to directly support venues is brilliant and here in Liverpool with the LCR music board we are working with the local councils to support venues. We are so fortunate that we have amazing venues here, which is the reason why we can run Sound City in the centre of Liverpool.
“The LIVE Trust are doing amazing work with the ticket levy with £500,000 pledged in ticket contributions from UK tours of domestic and international artists. I'm glad that grassroots venues are being recognised finally as a vital part of the national agenda and are being kept up their through lobbying from Music Venue Trust and Independent Venue Week, but the day to day realities are tough and their importance needs to be constantly reiterated by all the artists who have benefitted from them on the way up and every sector of the industry. Simply, without them the industry would crumble. The best stories about Sound City all involve a grassroots venue. Ed Sheeran played to 300 in Bumper in Liverpool, Florence + The Machine playing in the Attic, which is 50-cap and also hosted Catfish And The Bottleman, who played in there like they were in a stadium. The 1975 also played in the Zanzibar with a queue round the block… The list goes on and on.”
What’s your biggest achievement so far?
“When we did our five year: 2019-2024 impact report. We have worked with 3,682 young people in that time through training, mentoring, masterclasses and have given out over 100 bursaries to enable young people to do paid work experience or to support their career. We see a world where everyone can benefit from the transformative power of music and it is humbling to play a part in supporting so many young people and being able to demonstrate that young people from any background can now look at the music industry and say, ‘I can do that.’
“Also, in 2019 I ran Sound City when I was less than a month from giving birth to my eldest son. I was so huge I thought I was going to give birth on site! It was my first full year as MD and we had Mabel, Loyle Carner, Shame… Sam Fender played on a 200-cap stage and Fontaines DC played on the BIMM Ireland stage. Being able to play a part in the stories of artists and young people starting out in their careers is a huge privilege.”
What advice would you offer young women about enjoying a successful career in music?
“Be persistent and don't be afraid to ask for what you want. The music industry can feel like a closed shop sometimes, but it needs young talent and if you keep asking and persisting you will succeed. It's a case of keeping going and you will get to where you want. I am naturally quite shy and an introvert, and at times I have had to get the courage to ask for things I wanted but this has usually paid off. If you don't get the answer you want, you know you can move on quickly and it stops you wasting time worrying and wondering. I would also say don't put yourself down, you are your biggest champion and your uniqueness is needed in this industry.”
What’s the best advice you’ve ever had?
“Always treat everyone well at every stage of your career, be good to everyone on your way up as you never know who you will meet on your way down. At the start of my career, I was at an industry showcase and there was a young woman there who was doing interviews and artist managers there were being quite dismissive of her. We chatted and she gave me one of her mixtapes and we stayed in touch after for a bit. She then became a senior agent and I thought of all the managers who were dismissive trying to get their artists onto her roster. It's great advice and it helps me to really look out for rising talent.”
Is there a young woman you'd like to shout out who you think is a rising star?
“From my own Sound City and Modern Sky team, Esme O'Keefe who is label manager and ran both The Lottery Winners No.1 album campaigns, Sara McPhail who works across Sound City and Modern Sky on audience development, Cassie Kelly our in house designer.
“We have had some amazing young women come through our training programmes who have gone on to have brilliant careers like Amy McArthur at Cuffe and Taylor, Jess Kobras at Coca Cola, Holly Jones at Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Holly Minto from Crawlers.
“Sorry, that's seven! There are so many I want to spotlight!
Similarly, is there a young woman artist whose music you're enjoying right now/excited about?
“Immi Dash who played Sound City this year in the Kazimier Garden is brilliant, she played at around 2pm to a spellbound crowd and her vocals and stage presence are so captivating.”
Finally, what’s your biggest lesson from 2025 so far?
“It's been quite a tough year for me personally and juggling a career with three young children can be incredibly tricky, but taking time to zoom out and see things from a macro perspective continues to be invaluable. It’s about looking at all the things that are good, the challenges that I'm always overcoming and the progress I'm making over the long term.”
AWARDS PHOTO: Louise Haywood-Schiefer
