Bumble Opens Submissions For Music Competition’s Second Year

Bumble has re-opened the submission process for the ‘Empowered by Bumble Bizz’ initiative well ahead of the 2020 music festival season.

The programme looks to address gender imbalance in the music industry by providing up-and-coming female musicians with the opportunity to perform at some of the biggest events. As part of the prize, winners also receive one-to-one mentoring from an already established star.

According to the brand, studies have shown that in 2018 only 17% of artists on year-end charts were female. Further, women represented just 19% of the lineups at major festivals.

2019 winner Ximone was picked to be mentored by Hayley Kiyoko at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, while R&B artist Shilan spent time with Bebe Rexha at San Francisco’s Outside Lands. 

The final 2019 winner, who will meet country music star Kacey Musgraves at Austin City Limits in October, is currently being deliberated.

Courtney Trucksess, director of sponsorship and marketing at C3 Presents (one of Bumble’s partners for the scheme), explained to Pollstar: “In the past two years more and more has been brought to the forefront of gender disparity. Bumble’s done some incredible things to really move that ball forward for women. We’ve always been fans of theirs from the sidelines.

“We were talking about ideas and how we could work together and we just sort of created this platform that we thought would be a really unique [way] to give women some opportunities and develop [their careers].”

‘Making Moves in Music’ a similar Bumble promotion, culminated in August when aspiring EDM DJ Nicky Elisabeth performed at festivals in Miami and Amsterdam after winning the social app’s competition.

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