What Being a Woman in a Male-Dominated Industry Actually Looks Like

Most days, I don't even clock that I'm a woman in a male-dominated industry. It just becomes the water you swim in. You get on with it, you love the work, and the gender dynamic fades into the background.

But then something makes you look back. And you remember exactly what it was like before.

I've spent the better part of two decades in live events and production. I've worked on projects that have genuinely taken my breath away, alongside some of the most talented, creative and passionate people I've ever met. And I wouldn't trade a single moment of it. But if I'm being honest, and that's very much the point of writing this, the path here wasn't always straightforward. Not because the industry isn't worth it. It absolutely is. But because, for a long time, it wasn't designed with people like me in mind.

This is my attempt to talk about that honestly. About what it took, what I've learned, and why I genuinely believe that the best of the events and production world is still ahead of us.

The Rooms Nobody Tells You About

When you're starting out in live events, nobody briefs you on the rooms. Not the venues or the production spaces, but the meetings, the site visits, the pitches where you quietly clock that the dynamic is off before anyone has said a word. The rooms where you had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. Where someone spoke to the man standing next to you instead of you, even though you'd built the client relationship, led the project and made the call. Where the quiet assumption hung in the air that you were "just marketing" and probably wouldn't understand the technical brief. Spoiler: I understood the technical brief.

That particular assumption followed me around for longer than it should have. And I know I'm not alone in that. Women in AV, women in production, women in event technology will recognise this immediately. It's not dramatic, it's not always malicious, and it's rarely worth raising in the moment. It's just a steady, low-level friction that you absorb and adapt to, often without realising quite how much energy it's costing you.

When you're younger, that friction chips away at you more than you let on. You start second-guessing how you show up. Whether you're too much, or not enough. Whether you should dial it back, toughen up, take up less space. You try on different versions of yourself, looking for the one that gets taken seriously without losing what makes you, you. The answer, by the way, is none of the above.

What I know now, that I genuinely wish I'd known at the start, is that you don't have to flatten yourself to fit the room. You don't have to be louder, harder or more like the people who've always held the space. You can lead with warmth, with instinct, with relationships built on real trust, and build something genuinely brilliant doing it. That's not the soft option. That's not the consolation prize. That's just good leadership.

It took me a while to land on that with real conviction rather than just telling myself it was true. But once it clicked, something shifted. I stopped performing confidence and started actually having it.

Building Something Worth Being Proud Of

At iMAG, I've had the privilege of helping to shape not just what we deliver but how we deliver it. The culture we've built is something I care about deeply. Not just the technology we use, extraordinary as that is. Not just the scale and ambition of the projects we take on. But the culture we've built around all of it. One where people matter more than ego, where collaboration is genuinely how we work rather than a word on a wall, and where anyone walking in for the first time feels like they belong there.

That matters to me because it's the environment I would have wanted when I was starting out. And because I think it makes the work better. Always.

I want to say something about the men in this industry, because the narrative around women in male-dominated spaces can sometimes feel like it's building a case against the men in the room. That's not my experience, and it wouldn't be honest to write as though it were. The men who've had my back over the years? Absolute legends. The ones who championed me in rooms I wasn't in, judged me on the work and nothing else, and never once made me feel like I had something to prove. Who pushed back on poor assumptions when they heard them, and who treated genuine collaboration as the baseline rather than a favour.

Those people shaped my career in ways I'm still grateful for. I see you, and I appreciate you more than you know. The conversation about gender in our industry isn't about blame. It's about building something better together. And the men who get that, the ones who've always got it, are a big part of why I'm optimistic about where we're heading.

Why the Future of Live Events Looks Brilliant

The industry is changing and the range of voices shaping what live events looks, sounds and feels like is broader than it's ever been. More women in technical roles. More women in creative leadership. More women owning the room in ways that would have felt rare even ten years ago. Seeing that doesn't just make me happy. It makes me feel like we're finally getting somewhere.

The live events and production world is one of the most creatively rich, technically exhilarating industries there is. It demands everything from you, and it gives back in equal measure. It is, in my completely unbiased opinion, one of the best places to build a career. This world has room for all of us. Frankly, it's better for it.

If you're a woman finding your footing in live events, production, AV or any corner of this industry, you're in exactly the right place. Find your people. Back yourself. Don't shrink to fit rooms that weren't built for you. Build better rooms. I'll be cheering you on. And if you want to talk about what a career in this world looks like, what it takes, what it gives back, or anything in between, our door is always open. That's the kind of industry I want us to be part of.