“In the world of getting better diversity, I mean, even if you look 10 years ago, it was so bad – it was shithouse. We’ve just been coming up exponentially in terms of awareness, globally, and not just in the music industry, but everywhere.

“So what I’m programming is a result of all those years of hard work of educating people, and building that awareness. These artists have a lot of different genders and cultural backgrounds at BIGSOUND, and in a few years time they will be playing those festivals.”

Welcome to One Year Later, an Industry Observer podcast, presented by APRA AMCOS, where we revisit career changing moments, one year on.

In this episode, Poppy Reid chats to Maggie Collins, industry veteran, triple j presenter, label services company founder, and artist manager to DZ Deathrays.

Collins programmed the mammoth BIGSOUND conference and festival in 2017, she did it all again this year, and she loved it so much she’s planning next year’s too.

Recorded on ground at BIGSOUND 2018, a year after her first stint as programmer, Maggie Collins discussed the importance of conference diversity, music festival lineups, the story behind her signing of DZ Deathrays, 2019’s programmer additions, her favourite new manager in the biz, and so much more.

“It’s about having three other brains and ears on everything,” she said when asked about 2019 programmer additions Tom Larkin, Melody Forghani and Tim Shiel. “And all of their connections, their music tastes and their knowledge spread out not just to the rest of the country, but to the rest of the world.

“BIGSOUND is on the map now, on the international conference and festival stage, and I think we’re going to need all of these people and these brilliant minds to stretch out and make the most of that knowledge.”

Stream One Year Later with Maggie Collins below: