Backstage Pass - June

Welcome to the June edition of Backstage Pass!?

I wanted to firstly thank everyone who completed our recent Mental Health and Wellbeing in Music and the Creative Industries 2024 survey. We had 2,300 responses, which is an excellent sample size for our analysis of the mental health and wellbeing of people working across these industries in Australia.?

We’d like to thank the Centre for Social Impact Swinburne for their incredible work on the survey to date, and Entertainment Assist and the other organisations who shared it with their networks. We’ll be releasing the results in August, so keep your eyes peeled!?

In this month's Backstage Pass, we are pleased to be launching our brand new Money Moves program and you can find information on all of our July workshops and events.

As always, thanks so much for your ongoing dedication to supporting our wonderful industry.?

Best wishes,

Clive Miller

CEO

Thank you to those of you who have donated so generously to our End of Financial Year campaign.?

We appreciate that there are many worthy organisations who are soliciting financial support at this time of the year, but hope that as music lovers, you can support our efforts to provide a safety net for those music workers who slip through the cracks when faced with an unexpected crisis.?

These can include a loss of income that comes from injury, illness, a mental health issue or some other crisis that is preventing someone from working; or the challenge of being able to farewell a much loved music worker with dignity if they have not made provision for their funeral.

There are only two more days left to make your tax deductible gift for this financial year. Please give generously, if you can.

Donate now.

We’re thrilled to announce our brand new Money Moves - money management and financial wellbeing 101 program.

If you need to get your financial situation sorted, make sure to check out this free self-paced eLearning program that features three easy-to-consume chapters with videos and fact sheets on a wide range of topics from financial health and goals to super, tax, debt and savings.?

You can complete the program in less than an hour, and walk away with helpful tools and entry-level know-how to start getting your finances in check.

Get started.

Equip yourself with live-saving skills through our online Suicide Prevention Training, delivered in partnership with LivingWorks. You can build the knowledge, confidence and language around important suicide prevention skills.

This training is available to anyone aged 16 and over who works in the industry as a musician, manager, crew or music worker, or someone who supports someone within the music community.

Register before June 30 for free access to our 90 minute training to become an invaluable advocate for mental health.

Register now.

Calling all music industry managers and team leaders! We’re excited to announce our first free and online Managers Wellbeing Check-In happening on Thursday 4 July from 10am-11:30am (AEST).?

You can learn to recognise how mental health and wellbeing exists on a spectrum, and why working in music can be uniquely challenging for people’s mental health.

Register now here.?

We also have a Music Workers Wellbeing Check-In coming up on Monday 15 July from 10am-11:30am for musicians, composers, producers, crew and sole traders. You can learn to kick off important mental health conversations and much more!?

Register for free.

Yarning Strong - NAIDOC Week: Keep the Fire Burning! Blak, loud and proud! will be happening on Wednesday 10 July at The Retreat Hotel, Bulleke-Bek/Brunswick from 1:30pm-2:30pm.

Join host Mitch Tambo and panellists Scott Darlow, Kerry Kennell and Candice Lorrae as they explore 2024’s NAIDOC theme in the context of how resilience, mental health and wellbeing can be expressed through music.??

"Blak, Loud and Proud" encapsulates the unapologetic celebration of Indigenous identity and empowerment to stand tall in their culture and assert their place in the modern music industry.?

Supported by the Victorian State Government through the Community Support Fund (CSF); and JB Hi-Fi’s Helping Hands Program.

Register now.

We’re excited to announce our first free and online Responding with Compassion workshop, happening on Wednesday 17 July from 10am-1pm (AEST).?

Presented in association with Full Stop Australia, the three-hour online workshop is designed to assist those who may receive disclosures of trauma. The workshop can help support individuals to cultivate psychologically safe workplaces as well as form an individual framework to provide a compassionate, trauma-informed response to a disclosure.

We encourage music workers, artist managers, HR managers, People and Culture Managers and those in positions of leadership to attend.

Register now.

Legendary audio pioneer Bill Armstrong has made a generous contribution by donating jazz royalties to Australian Road Crew Association for crew relief. He has green-lighted to release 42 albums from his jazz labels Bilarm Music and Swaggie Records to raise funds for crew in crisis.

These are to be reissued (on CD and physical formats only) on ARCA’s own Black Box Records, through MGM Distribution.

Find out more.

We wanted to share with you a testimonial from someone who has recently donated to Support Act.

“If you love live performance, help Support Act to help the creative people who bring that performance to the stage or screen. Most of them don't have dependable 9 to 5 work. Life can be challenging, and they need our help to keep doing the amazing things they do. Give generously.”

If you would like to make a donation to Support Act, you can do so here.?

If you need help, please reach out and ask for it. There’s no shame in it and we are here for you. To find out more about how we can help, visit the Get Help page on the website.