The Power 50: Jane Slingo

Jane Slingo started working in the electronic music sector in 1994 and has worked as a promoter, tour and artist manager, street press editor, booking agent and publicist in the time since. In 2006, Slingo founded management company Young Strangers, with acts like Sampology on the books. Slingo has been the Executive Producer of Electronic Music Conference (EMC) since 2016, having worked on the event from 2014, and co-founded the Global Cities After Dark forum in 2017. She remains a member of MusicNSW’s management board and APRA’s Club Music Advisory Group.

2019 was a record-making year for Jane Slingo and both EMC and Global Cities After Dark. EMC brought in its highest attendance yet, with nearly 8,000 people (aged from 16-60+) attending the 22 festival events over five days and nights. The line-up consisted of 120 artists - 50% of these artists came from culturally diverse backgrounds, 23% were from the LGBTQIA+ community, 41% were female, 5% non-binary and 54% male. The success continued across Global Cities After Dark too, with the event also securing its highest ever attendance. 

That wasn’t it for Slingo in 2019 though; she also lobbied for the removal of Sydney’s lockout laws through both collaborating with the community and providing evidence as part of the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Sydney’s Night Time Economy. The lockout laws for the Sydney CBD and Oxford Street districts were repealed in November 2019, coming into effect in early 2020. 

"Being a part of a committed and passionate group of music sector and nightlife figures that worked incredibly hard in 2019 to ensure that music and its value to our society was recognised both in NSW and Federal Parliament. Whilst 2019 left so many of us very exhausted, (especially in NSW where we copped a State and Federal Election back to back) there were some pretty special silver linings to this hard slog. Genuine and deep friendships blossomed between like-minded colleagues. Working for equality and to benefit for the many not the few brings a whole new level of purpose to one's professional life."