A Forecast of All Male Line-ups
With Coachella already been and gone, it’s safe to say that the festival season has started. With a summer of Glastonbury, Parklife and Reading and Leeds still to come our way I do wonder, have festivals got better in diversifying their line ups this year?
Last year SKY news reported that ‘Across 104 festivals… Only a 5th (20%) of headline acts are fronted by women, compared with almost four-fifths (78%) by men and 2% by non-binary people’. Even though there were rumours of the most streamed artist of the year to headline Glastonbury, there were ‘touring conflicts’ which meant Taylor Swift was replaced with an all male lineup of Arctic Monkeys, Guns n Roses and Sir Elton John. And while festivals such as Isle of Wight and Latitude didn't have a single female fronted headliner on any of their stages, there was only hope for a significant change this summer.
The broadcast for the 2024 festival season has some sunshine. Friday night at Glastonbury this year is headlined by the Barbie soundtrack star Dua Lipa. Acts such as Little Simsz are playing the Saturday night and SZA is the closing-night Sunday headliner, while the legends slot is going to Shania Twain. But there is still a chance of clouds. The Isle of Wight Festival has gone again with all male headliners of The Prodigy, Pet Shop Boys and Green Day. Latitude has one female-lead band ,London Grammar, as one of their headliners. But simply one female performer between 14 men isn't the progress one had hoped for. Even looking closer to home, MADE festival, one of our festival partners, has gone ahead with another all male line up with the addition of the controversial Dizzee Rascal.
Who knows, maybe the 2025 season will be when we get the summer of sunshine we deserve.
- A Girl on Their Grind
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