Strangers from all walks of life meet in sweaty rooms to sing those songs together, share in those special moments and turn melancholy into euphoria. Friendships are made, spirits are lifted and perspectives are altered. It’s hugely powerful, and this happens across thousands of stages in thousands of venues every single day.
So, as a team whose mission it is to help make this happen, it’s our responsibility to ensure that everyone – across all genders, races, backgrounds, sexual orientations and physical abilities – can participate in these moments.
To do this, the Fan Support team has been working closely with the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) squad. While there’s never a dull moment working at DICE, these sessions are always the highlight of my week. Both teams are determined to help DICE grow into a more equitable platform, where all fans are recognised and supported in exploring their cultural interests. It was from these sessions that we identified three key areas to prioritise.
First up, we needed to build the Fan Support team in a way that better represents the fans we serve. We worked with the Talent and People team to coordinate unconscious bias training for hiring managers, broadened the talent pools we were targeting and reconfigured our hiring process to incorporate diverse interview panels.
We’re growing fast and I’m proud that we’ve been able to attract a diverse, talented team. Fans come to us from all different walks of life for help, and it’s essential that we have a representative team who can rise to that challenge. We’ve made significant progress on this front, both in entry-level and leadership positions, and we’re stronger for it.
Secondly, we needed expert advice to help us support marginalised communities and provide a safer platform for all fans. When we say ‘safer platform’, we mean making the app and website more accessible, as well as ways that we can work with our partners to promote inclusion in venues. DICE has a zero-tolerance policy to harassment and we strive to do everything within our power to support victims of harassment and discrimination at shows – but reacting to situations isn’t good enough. We learnt that there are independent advisory campaigns out there that could help us proactively protect fans who are using our platform.
Along with some of our key venue partners, we’ve continued our partnership with Good Night Out, and worked together to prevent, respond to and understand sexual harassment and assault at shows in DICE partner venues. We also met with Attitude is Everything, whose insights into the challenges faced by deaf, visually impaired and disabled fans helped shape how we advocate for changes to our platform going forwards.