Hi Jane, thanks for your time today, could you tell us a bit about yourself? 

I’m Jane and I’ve worked in electronic and dance music for almost thirty years. I’ve had a decent range of roles during these decades – started as a performer at clubs and raves in the 90s in Meanjin (Brisbane), and have worked as a promoter, publicist, curator, event producer, agent and manager since. Today, besides EMC, I also own and operate two other companies – VibeLab Asia Pacific with my excellent European partners Mirik Milan and Lutz Leichsenring; and Young Strangers which provides management services to two amazing Australian acts, Sampology and Middle Name Dance Band. 

On a personal note I’m grateful to live on Guringai country – otherwise known as Sydney’s Northern Beaches – with my husband, my daughter and our dog. 

What’s your role and EMC and when did you first get involved? 

I’m Director of the company and Executive Producer across all of EMC’s events and activities. We’re a small but mighty team, so I’m very hands on across all facets of EMC – from programming to production, marketing and partnerships, governance and financial management. I’m lucky to have a team of legends in various departments, and EMC’s Advisory Board who have been critical to supporting me with many decisions, especially over the past couple of years. 

EMC was founded in 2012 by ‘inthemix’ – a dance music website which no longer exists but had a very significant impact on the culture here for a long time. In the first year I was a moderator on one of the panels. The following year I was based in Asia and the EMC founders asked me to curate a conference stream dedicated to the Asia Pacific. Year 3, I was invited to program the entire conference, which I did for two years. Then I was asked to take over as Executive Producer, which I did for two years. When the original founders sold their business, I took over in 2017 as Director. 

For those that don’t know what’s the history behind EMC?

A true story that many may not know is that prior to EMC being founded by Tim Duggan and Neil Ackland, I had been working on an idea for an electronic music conference for the Asia Pacific region. A friend and colleague of mine Rob (shout out Rob!) had spent some time working on a plan, meeting with other conference producers to understand the business better… We ended up parking it as our own lives were quite stacked and we knew it was a massive project. Not that long after this time, Tim Duggan phoned me to ask me to be involved in EMC’s first edition. I shared with him the plans I’d been working on in the background, congratulated him and Neil on launching EMC and said of course I’d love to be involved. Little did I know that eventually I would see out my earlier plan to own and run an electronic music conference. 

Australia in particular Sydney has had its challenges. Can you explain why this particular moment is so important for the music scene? 

Through the global lens, I think this moment is important for a few reasons. If we don’t take collective action now to minimise and offset the carbon emissions created by our work, we will be dealing with grave consequences in the not too distant future. We are already experiencing the brutal reality of climate change in Australia, with numerous festivals cancelling in the summer of 2019/2020 due to bushfires and this year due to catastrophic floods in multiple states. 

I believe this is also an important moment for looking honestly at the live and touring model. For artists (and therefore managers) and small – medium promoters, live and touring has significant risk – the stakes were high even prior to the pandemic. Now, the stakes are even higher with inflated travel costs be that flights, fuel or on ground costs with food and accommodation being more expensive. We are seeing numerous high profile artists cancelling tours because it isn’t financially viable for the artist. If higher profile artists can’t make it work financially, there is little hope for emerging to mid tier artists. I believe we need to get our heads together to create a model that doesn’t put all the risk on artists or promoters, that supports them to introduce new music, new artists and new experiences to audiences.

In terms of Eora/Sydney specifically, yes it is a very important time. It’s no secret that Sydney’s nightlife and cultural landscape was shattered not only from Covid-19 but prior to that, lockout laws for 6 years. In terms of regulation, we are entering a new chapter. There are still challenges but in my 25 years here I have never experienced such alignment between government and industry. 2023 is an exciting start to this new chapter with two blockbuster events (Sydney WorldPride and SXSW) bookending next year. If we can get the framework right to ensure that the abundance of small to medium operators can run their culture and business week in, week out with ease, then Sydney is going to fire on all cylinders. It’s been a long time coming, but we’re on our way there. 

Finally, in so-called Australia there is a strong movement of First Nations artists coming to the fore. I think we are on the cusp of something really exciting with more and more First Nations artists gaining deserved attention. There has been an undeniable growth of First Nations hip hop artists in this country and with the right support for First Nations artists in electronic and dance music, we are going to experience a boom of something special, musically and culturally. 

What first connected you with the Sydney music scene?

I moved to Sydney in the late 90s. I was previously working in the Meanjin/Brisbane music scene. When I came to Sydney I only knew a handful of people that were all in the music industry in Sydney. So I was lucky to be pointed to parties and events from a number of excellent people with just as excellent taste. 

Not too long after I moved to Eora/Sydney, I connected with a lovely Kiwi man by the name of Fryderyk Kublikowski. We ended up working together on launching the Australian edition of an NZ magazine called Remix. Back then, Remix was centred on electronic and dance music. This was my first step in working in the music industry here, but on the publishing side. Working on Remix led me to my first management client, a young DJ called Kid Kenobi. I managed Jesse (Kid Kenobi) for a decade. During that period, Jesse won some inthemix top 50 DJ awards, which connected me with Tim and Neil, the original Founders of EMC. It’s all connected in this industry, across many different career disciplines. 

Diversity and inclusivity features heavily every year at EMC, what has driven this? 

This has been a natural evolution of EMC since I took it over, and reflective of our learnings. On a personal level, I have always been more excited and inspired by people and communities outside of the mainstream. I just find the music and culture far more interesting, and in greater need of showcasing. 

It’s quite simply about being conscious. Many people criticise diversity and inclusion as tokenistic or being too PC. I disagree. I think anything – whether it’s a conference session or a party or a festival – is far more enjoyable, far more valuable and far more interesting when there is a range of different voices and music. I also have two people in my family living with disability, so I have my own insights from lived experience as to the barriers for people living with disability and participating in everything on offer for people living without disability. It was really important to me to go on a learning journey to make EMC more inclusive not simply through the lens of gender or cultural background but also to remove barriers for people living with disability, as well as many other groups. We are still on that learning journey. 

You have been particularly supportive of the indigenous people in Australia, what have you done to ensure they are represented?

I don’t know if I would call it particularly supportive – but we do try our very best to make sure that EMC is an accessible and welcoming space for First Nations people. We believe that for any support to be impactful it needs to be First Nations led. Some very simple things we do is always having an Aboriginal elder providing an official Welcome to Country at the start of the conference. It is part of cultural protocol. We have done this for many years. International visitors are always pleasantly surprised by this as it’s not usual to see a Welcome to Country at other music conferences around the world. We also offer accessible ticket prices for First Nations attendees.

This year, we have a session called ‘An Electronic Music Dreaming’ which is led by and entirely features First Nations speakers. It is focused on institutionalised racism, invisibility, justice, and equality and how non-Indigenous people in colonised working structures can help to grow the hotbed of First Nations electronic and dance music artists in so-called Australia. I am SO excited for this panel. I hope that anyone in the audience can walk away with learnings and will think deeply about how we can work within these colonised structures to better support the growth of First Nations electronic and dance artists and music.  

What is the best piece of life advice you’ve ever received?

Sleep on it. 

Favourite club or festival and why?

Favourite club is 77 in Sydney. A two-decade-plus institution and many of my favourite club experiences from the late 90s til now is at 77. I’m a big fan of what Dane, Tim and the team are doing. You can see that they used the lockdown period to hone in on their vision and what’s important to create a beautiful space that has a variety of options musically. It’s working for them with often a 2 hour+ queue to get in. Long live 77! 

Favourite festival is hands down We Out Here (UK). I have only been once (this year) but it exceeded my expectations. The lineup is incredible, (I mean, Gilles & Noah do pull together a damn fine lineup without fail every time, right?) the people that attend actively seek out new amazing music, the food is fantastic (shout out Brawnswood) and the music is overwhelmingly good whether you’re at one of the main stages or listening to another incredible DJ performing at one of the bars. And the crowd is everyone from toddlers to 60+ from many corners of the world. I cannot wait to go back in 2023. 

Favourite clubbing memory?

Oh jeez, given I’m almost 50 I’ve got quite the bank of those! I’m going to go with the most recent one which was at ADE when Antal, Kamma and Masalo B2B2B closed out Rush Hour x Rainbow Disco Party. It was a phenomenal set and the unity and connection in the crowd was absolutely electric. Hardest and most fun dance I’ve had in years.