Members Voices: Frances Shillito – Zero Tolerance Is Not A Safeguarding Strategy
By Frances Shillito, Specialist Trainer at The Standard and Artist Manager at Night Department
- How I got here
- What I see across the industry
- The gap nobody is filling
- What good actually looks like
- What I want for this industry
HOW I GOT HERE
My world has usually always been artist management, venue relations and music industry consultancy. The stuff of touring schedules, booking negotiations and artist development conversations. I loved it. I still do. I feel very lucky to work in an environment where everyone genuinely loves what they do and is passionate about music and everything this messy industry entails.
But I have spent enough time inside this industry to know that passion does not automatically translate into safety. At some point along the way, through a combination of my own experiences and the experiences of people around me, I became deeply interested in that gap between the industry we love and the industry we need it to be. A gap between how much we care about the music and how little infrastructure exists to protect the people making it, selling it, booking it and experiencing it.
I started paying attention to that gap. Then I started asking questions about it. Then, almost without noticing, I became someone who does something about it.
WHAT I SEE ACROSS THE INDUSTRY
One in five people attending a UK music festival experience sexual harassment or assault. Only 2% ever report it to the police. 43% of women under 40 have been affected at a music event.
But it does not stop at the festival gates. A 2024 peer-reviewed study found that 95.5% of women and 70% of men working in the UK music industry reported experiencing sexual harassment, across labels, agencies, management companies, venues and beyond. According to the UK Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee report published in June 2025, 32% of women musicians have been sexually harassed while working, with the figure higher still for Black, disabled and LGBT+ women. Over two thirds of those who experienced it never reported it, most commonly because they feared what it would do to their career.
That last point matters. This is not just a problem of bad behaviour. It is a problem of silence. Silence is what happens when people do not feel safe, supported or confident that anything will change if they speak up, and when nobody around them knows how to respond once something does come to light.
The numbers matter. But what I find genuinely interesting right now is what is happening around them.
Something has shifted. Across labels, agencies, management companies, promoters, venues and touring teams, I am seeing more people than ever who want to get this right. People who are asking questions, raising their hands, saying they want to do better but are not quite sure where to start. The conversation around safety and accountability in music has changed significantly over the last few years, and the appetite for real, practical action has never been stronger.
I see it in the rooms I walk into. The junior label assistant who wants to know what to do if a colleague comes to them with something difficult. The agent who witnessed something at a showcase and wishes they had known how to respond. The manager who wants to put a proper code of conduct in place for their artists but has never had a template to work from. The promoter who is ready to invest in proper staff training but does not know where to find something built for their world specifically.
The will is there. What people need is the framework. That is exactly where The Standard comes in.
There is one more group I want to speak to directly here, and that is the men in this industry. In my experience, many of them want to do the right thing. They just do not always know what that looks like in practice, particularly when an allegation involves someone they know, someone they respect, someone they have worked alongside for years. That is an uncomfortable position to be in. But discomfort is not a reason to stay silent.
When a male colleague hears something, sees something or is told something, his response in that moment matters enormously. Not just for the person who has been harmed, but for the culture of the whole industry. Every time someone looks the other way because it is easier, or because they do not want to believe it of a person they like, that behaviour gets more room to exist. Every time someone chooses to ask questions, to take it seriously, to pass it to the right person, that room gets smaller.
The Standard exists to give everyone in this industry, men included, the knowledge and confidence to act when it counts. You do not need to be an expert. You do not need to have all the answers. You just need to know enough to not walk away. That is what this type of training and these kinds of conversations do, and that is why it matters for everyone, not just the people most likely to be affected.
THE GAP NOBODY IS FILLING
Generic safeguarding training exists. Corporate HR training exists. What has been missing is training built specifically for the reality of working in music, across all of its forms.
Training that understands what a festival at two in the morning looks and feels like, but also what it means to be a junior member of a label team who witnesses something at a work event and has no idea what to do. Training that speaks to the booking agent, the manager, the A&R executive and the tour manager, not just the venue door staff. Training that knows the particular power dynamics of this world: between artists and fans, between senior and junior staff, between the people who hold the budgets and the people who need the work.
The Standard delivers bespoke safeguarding and safety training across the music and events industry, for labels, agencies, management companies, promoters, venues, festivals and everything in between. We cover red flag recognition, consent, power dynamics, trauma-informed response and incident management. Every session is built around real scenarios from this world, because that is the only way it actually sticks.
Earlier this year we delivered our first full Safer Spaces session for Teletech, a music and events company. Two hours, live online, with the full staff team. We ran scenario workshops, talked through real situations, and covered what to say and what never to say when someone discloses an incident. Every attendee left with a certificate of completion, a staff reference sheet and an artist code of conduct ready to use.
The feedback was brilliant. But the thing that stayed with me most was how many of the men in the room got involved in the conversation. It was refreshing to see.
WHAT GOOD ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
Zero tolerance is a phrase this industry loves. It is a good phrase. But it means very little without something behind it.
You cannot have a zero tolerance policy if your staff cannot recognise an incident. You cannot support a survivor if no one knows what to say in the first sixty seconds. You cannot escalate appropriately without an escalation process. Words on a website are not a safeguarding strategy.
What good looks like is actually pretty straightforward. Staff who can spot the signs early. A team that knows how to respond to a disclosure with care and confidence. A clear chain of escalation that holds up under pressure. An incident logging system so nothing falls through the cracks. Artists and their teams who know exactly what is expected of them before they arrive on site.
None of this is complicated. All of it is achievable. And all of it starts with a conversation that most organisations in our industry simply have not had yet.
WHAT I WANT FOR THIS INDUSTRY
Honestly? I want safeguarding training to become as standard as fire safety training. Non-negotiable. Expected. Part of what it means to run this industry responsibly and change the culture.
I want artists and touring teams to work under clear codes of conduct as a matter of course. I want junior staff to feel safe enough to raise concerns without worrying about their careers. I want survivors in our industry to be met with belief, proper support and a clear path forward every time, not just when someone happens to know what to do.
I am also working on something new that I will be sharing more about very soon, a development that I hope will bring a genuinely different level of specialist support to the music and events world. Watch this space.
The electronic music community is one of the most creative, resilient, forward-thinking communities on the planet. It absolutely deserves to be safe. Not as an aspiration but as a baseline.
Frances Shillito
Specialist Trainer, The Standard & Artist Manager, Night Department