Baz Halpin was ready to follow his family into classical music when a Jethro Tull tour changed everything. As a teenager in the Nineties, the Irish producer and director had been working at a Dublin concert hall, where he became captivated by the way that lighting could accentuate the emotionality of music. So he accepted a gig as a lighting tech and rigger.
“I went on tour, and it was like stepping through that door in The Wizard of Oz, where everything suddenly went into color,” recalls Halpin, CEO and founder of the production company Silent House Group. “This whole world of travel, excitement, responsibility, wildness, and everything the rock & roll lifestyle offered, I fell in love with it.”
Halpin’s yellow brick road has taken him all the way to Sphere Las Vegas, where The Wizard of Oz itself has stepped through bold new doors with an immersive 4D film. It’s here that Halpin has masterminded the visuals for residencies by the Eagles and Backstreet Boys. He’s now working with No Doubt on their own Sphere engagement, opening May 6 — a “nostalgic, exciting, surprising” ride chronicling the band’s 40-year run.
“This will be a journey through the most important moments in the history of No Doubt,” Halpin says. “The band grew up in Orange County and conquered the world. They’ve been through so many things together, and the beauty of the Sphere is the ability to tell those stories in a visual way. You’ll be swept away and feel like you’re experiencing their evolution alongside them.”
The artistic potential in Sphere is a long way from Halpin’s earlier work in production design and creative direction for Pink, Cher, Christina Aguilera, and George Michael’s final tour, Symphonica, which paired the late singer with orchestral accompanists. “He did a version of ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ with this incredible orchestra, which still floors me,” Halpin recalls. He describes his diverse résumé, which also includes time spent working on Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance, as a “university” that taught him how to enthrall audiences across genres and venues.
Silent HouseAnother major highlight in his career was collaborating with Taylor Swift as she transitioned into pop with her Red tour in 2013. Halpin continued to work closely with Swift on the global treks that followed, including her record-breaking Eras Tour. Live events like those highlight the ways today’s superstars are stretching the limits of live production: Artists want to achieve “more than what came before,” he says, at a time when concertgoers are creatively savvier than ever.
“Most people, whether through Instagram or TikTok, are creatives in their own right,” he adds. “Everyone’s an editor. There’s a knowledge base within the fandom that wasn’t there before, which increases the bar to wow people…. And the technology, software, and processing power [have increased] how much you can do. The whole industry’s moved forward, which allows you to dream bigger. Nobody would’ve conceived Sphere 20 years ago.”
No Doubt were fresh from their 2024 Coachella comeback when Halpin, who worked on their 2009 Summer Tour, was brought on for their residency. He began by presenting mood boards and reference images, which he fine-tuned with the band before creating a show deck. Once the set list was finalized, he showed Gwen Stefani, bassist Tony Kanal, guitarist Tom Dumont, and drummer Adrian Young what he envisioned for each song on a projector, then they developed the ideas together.
“So much of it has to take shape in your mind because you’re not seeing finished products — just references, models, or sketches,” Halpin says. “They’re all creative and able to do that, but it’s a tough process.”
No Doubt’s Sphere residency is shaping up to be one of this year’s biggest live events.WireImageThe greatest challenge with Sphere remains the “delicate little dance” of creating extraordinary visuals without overshadowing the band. With No Doubt, the creative possibilities felt greater thanks to the range of their discography, from ballads like “Don’t Speak” to pop-punk anthems like “Ex-Girlfriend.”
Halpin says that the group’s Orange County roots will feature prominently in the show, while eagle-eyed fans will catch numerous Easter eggs. “We’ve done a deep dive, pulling out obvious moments from the past and obscure ones,” says Halpin.
Having also directed Super Bowl halftime shows for Katy Perry and Usher, Halpin feels that both live sports and music are critical avenues for human connections. He ultimately hopes his work elevates such moments and memories.
“In an increasingly digital and isolated world, sports and live music are two of the few remaining things where humans gather, almost ceremonially, and participate,” he says. “Something magical happens there. As a director or producer, you want to heighten that experience. And when there’s that nostalgic element, those memories are threaded into our souls, so honoring that is important.”
Protesters gather at Harvey Weinstein's trial in 2020 in New York City.
The Music Industry’s Unfinished #MeToo Fight
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and I’m writing this open letter not to call anyone out, but to invite you in.
The music industry has had several opportunities for a reckoning in recent years. But so far, it’s a reckoning the industry has managed to avoid. What we’ve seen instead are individual moments, isolated legal outcomes, and public spectacles that generate headlines but haven’t produced the systemic change this industry needs. The scrutiny that swept through Hollywood at the height of the #MeToo movement largely passed over the music industry. And while the last few years have heightened that scrutiny, the industry’s response has been mostly silence.
Historically, the legal window for survivors of sexual assault to seek justice was shockingly narrow. On the criminal side, prosecutors in New York had as few as five years to bring charges for most felony sexual assault cases. On the civil side, survivors had just three years to file a lawsuit. In California, the time limit to criminally prosecute cases of rape was within 10 years, and three years to pursue civil action.
For anyone who understands how trauma actually works, how long it can take a survivor to process what happened, to find the language for it, to feel safe enough to come forward, those timelines were never realistic. In 2019, New York extended the criminal statute of limitations to as long as 20 years for certain sex crimes and extended the civil window to 20 years as well. California removed the statute of limitations for prosecuting rape cases entirely in 2016, and gave sexual abuse survivors 10 years to pursue litigation civilly. But none of those changes were retroactive, meaning that anyone whose window had already closed was still locked out of the legal system.
In 2022, the Adult Survivors Act (ASA) in New York state was passed to address that gap. It opened a one-year lookback window, allowing survivors to file civil suits that the previous statute of limitations had barred, regardless of when the abuse occurred. New York City’s Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Act provided an additional pathway for survivors to file claims. More than 3,500 complaints were filed before the ASA window closed in November 2023, and the music industry was at the center of some of the most high-profile cases. The lawsuits filed under these lookback windows didn’t just expose individual behavior. They exposed systems, institutional silence, and a culture that too often prioritized reputation and revenue over the safety of the people whose lives and labor make the industry thrive.
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California followed with the Sexual Abuse and Cover-up Accountability Act, its own lookback window that revived civil claims for sexual assaults with some strings attached. A one-year window for claims prior to 2009 required evidence of an institutional cover-up. A related two-year window for incidents after Jan.1, 2009 was more expansive but was due to close at the end of this year. After the vague wording of the initial law caused mixed results in the courts, California legislators passed a second law, the Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2026.
The new law opened an additional two-year filing window that is fully retroactive, expanding survivors’ ability to hold individual abusers accountable for sexual assault claims, no matter how old, without requiring them to also name a company or allege a cover-up. That window closes on Dec. 31, 2027. These laws aren’t just about courtrooms. They’re about culture. This wave of legislative shifts signals that the legal landscape is looking to provide more realistic pathways to keep up with society’s evolving understanding of the dynamics that enable sexual violence.
And yet, even with all of these new laws and legal claims, the industry has not had its reckoning. Fame, wealth, and power continue to distort and deny justice. What fandom and pop culture continue to prove is that if someone is talented enough, famous enough, and rich enough, there will always be people willing to ignore that person’s crimes, especially when those crimes are sexual in nature. Nostalgia and stardom have a way of putting people under a spell. I’ve seen it up close. Fame is a special kind of power that gets people to ignore things they would never tolerate from “normal people.” When the person accused is someone whose music is the soundtrack to their lives, the public reaction isn’t outrage. It’s a negotiation. It’s “But I love that song.” Celebrity turns the pursuit of justice into “content.” It turns survivors into characters in someone else’s story. And it gives the industry permission to do what it has always done: wait for the news cycle to pass and move on.
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That same power dynamic in the industry operates behind closed doors and away from cameras every day, making the most vulnerable susceptible to manipulation or worse. The gatekeepers who control whether your song gets picked, whether your deal gets signed, or whether you get invited back into potentially life-changing rooms hold a level of influence that extends well beyond the professional reach. And in an industry where so much happens informally — in studios late at night, at private events where the lines between business and social disappear — the opportunities for abuse of power are everywhere.
The music industry runs on collaboration. It runs on trust. A songwriter walks into a session with a producer they may have never met. An artist meets with an executive in a closed-door meeting to discuss a deal that could change their life. A young executive shows up on day one wanting nothing more than to prove they belong. Every one of these moments requires an environment where people feel safe enough to create, negotiate, learn, and say no without consequence. We all know that environment doesn’t always exist. And too many of us have looked the other way.
A 2024 global study by MIDiA Research, TuneCore, and Believe surveyed more than 4,100 music creators and professionals across 133 countries and found that three in five women in the music industry have experienced sexual harassment, and one in five have experienced sexual assault. More than 70 percent of those women did not report it, citing fear of retaliation and a belief that nothing would change. And for the women who did come forward, the outcomes weren’t much better. Fifty-six percent said their claims were ignored or dismissed, and nearly one-third were told to keep quiet.
So why hasn’t anything changed? Part of the answer is structural.
One of the biggest differences between the film industry and the music industry is organization. Hollywood has unions, guilds, and collective bodies that represent workers across the business. When the #MeToo movement began, those structures didn’t lead the charge, but they gave the movement somewhere to land and became vehicles for new codes of conduct, reporting systems, and protections. The music industry doesn’t have those same structures, but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless. It means we have to build differently. You don’t need a union to be unified. You don’t need to collectively bargain to have a collective consciousness. Keeping people safe in the rooms where music gets made is a human rights issue, and it should be something every company in this business can come to the table about.
The last few years have made this impossible to ignore. We have watched the federal prosecution and conviction of one of the most powerful figures in music history on charges tied to the exploitation of people inside his own organization. We have watched survivors come forward publicly, at tremendous personal cost, to tell stories that too many people in this business already knew.
And still, the question remains: what are the companies doing about it? Not the individuals. The companies. The record labels, music publishers, management firms, studios, and agencies. The institutions that fund the careers, expand the platforms, and decide what behavior gets addressed and what gets ignored.
As founder of The 100 Percenters, a nonprofit that aims to transform the standards of the music industry so that every working music creator can build a safe and sustainable career, I’ve watched this industry avoid its reckoning long enough. In response to that reality, The 100 Percenters created the Safe Music Business Pledge. A public commitment from companies across the music business to four straightforward principles: keep your people safe in the workplace and in studio sessions; report harassment and abuse when it happens and take action; refuse to tolerate inappropriate or abusive behavior; and create a safe space for those who don’t feel protected.
That’s it. Four commitments. None of them are controversial.
Organizations like the Recording Academy, BMI, SONA, LVRN, and others have already taken the pledge, and we welcome more support of this very important work. We are seeking record labels, publishers, and management firms with artists, songwriters, producers, and employees on their rosters. Companies that have the resources and the influence to set the standard for the entire industry.
Not having signed the pledge doesn’t mean a company is unsafe, and signing it doesn’t automatically make a company safe. But taking the pledge signals something that matters. It tells your artists, your songwriters, your producers, and your staff that you see the problem and you’re willing to do something about it.
The laws are evolving, the culture is shifting, survivors are speaking, and the public is watching. The reckoning this industry has managed to avoid is coming. The question is whether you will be on the right side of it.
If your company hasn’t taken the Safe Music Business Pledge, please visit the100percenters.com and sign it this month. If you’re an artist, songwriter, or producer reading this, I’m asking you to share the pledge with the companies you work with and tell them why it matters to you. We’ve even prepared an outreach template on our site to make that as easy as possible.
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The Safe Music Business Pledge is a concrete step toward making sure the people who create the music that drives this entire ecosystem can do so without fear. The industry is built on songs. Let’s make sure the people who write, produce, and perform them can walk into every room knowing they’re protected.