FEATURE:
Hopes for 2024
IMAGE CREDIT: Glastonbury Festival
Can Glastonbury Balance Their Bill and Inspire Other Large Festivals?
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EVEN though Glastonbury has one of the…
IMAGE CREDIT: Glastonbury Festival
most fascinating and diverse bill from all of the festivals this year, there is still that issue of gender. I know that the festival has been criticised for having three male acts (even though there is a female member of Guns N’ Roses for their live sets) as headliners, but the rest of the bill has not balanced things when it comes to including women fully and equally. I think that Glastonbury should lead the way when it comes to setting an example! Making sure that they have a good balance when it comes to gender. I know that they are getting close to fifty-fifty but, at a time when there is an abundance of female talent, what is holding them up?! Organisers have said that there is a pipeline issue. Meaning labels and the industry are not supporting and promoting female artists. Labels not signing women and marketing them. It means they are not getting gigs and being seen. I do not buy that the situation is that bad so that there is not enough choice to select from - especially away from the headline slots! Listen to the brilliant artists coming through, and you have a wealth of talent! Mixmag reported the news that the apparent pipeline issue has meant the world’s biggest music festival has not been able to achieve true gender parity this year:
“The number of male acts playing this year's Glastonbury Festival is nearly double that of female acts, a new report has found.
The report from Slingo found a hugely disproportionate number of male-fronted bands and solo artists set to play at the festival’s 51st edition later this month from June 21 - 26.
Across the festival’s 12 most popular stages, 182 male acts or bands with a higher number of male artists are due to perform, in comparison to just 100 female or female-dominating bands.
Out of those 12 stages, which include The Pyramid Stage, Arcadia, The Park Stage, and West Holts, Slingo found just 10 acts with an equal number of male to female members.
Glastonbury’s Glade stage was found to be most disproportionate with a huge 32 male-dominating acts set to play across the weekend, and just five female acts.
“Now the full line-up has been released, there is a noticeable discrepancy between the number of female and male acts, despite the festival pledging in 2019 to try and make their future line-ups gender-balanced,” says Dom Aldworth, Head of Brand Marketing at Slingo.
In March, after Glastonbury revealed its initial line-up including all-male headline acts, the festival was criticised for its imbalanced ratio of male to female artists.
Glastonbury’s co-organiser Emily Eavis commented that they were trying their best to book female acts, but asserted that there is an industry “pipeline” problem.
Statistics made by The Guardian showed that 52% of the first 54 names on the line-up were male. It included headliners Guns ‘N Roses, Arctic Monkeys, and Elton John.
“Glastonbury has confirmed the 2024 line-up will feature two female headliners, with the lack of female headliners this year attributed to a potential headliner pulling out,” says Aldworth.
“However, unless festivals commit to making the effort to recognise and platform the numerous talented women of the industry on some of the biggest stages in the world, Glastonbury won’t be the last festival to receive criticism for their line-ups”.
I do like the fact that there are two female headliners booked. I suppose that Taylor Swift is one of them. You look around, and one would think artists such as Lizzo and Jessie Ware could headline. Given the recent success Kylie Minogue has enjoyed, she must be on the radar for 2024. As will a host of established and rising female artists. I am sure that Glastonbury can achieve gender parity in 2024, but the fact female headliners (I think we are talking singular rather than plural) pulled out does not explain why the remainder of the bill is still struggling to include women. It will be a great festival with some terrific acts. In the sunshine, there is going to be so much celebration and revelry! I can appreciate that festivals need to compete with schedule clashes. Many artists that they want to book will be elsewhere. That particularly impacts headline acts. Though there should not be issues when it comes to others. I am possibly missing something obvious but, over the past few years, there has been this wave of female talent. I am not sure whether all are festival-ready, but you’d think most of them are! It does seem that there is a certain riskiness when it comes to female headliners. There has been an issue for years, and it is clear that something needs to be done. Sky reported on some of the problems holding back progress:
“Eve Horne is a producer, singer-songwriter and founder of Peak Music UK, which mentors female and non-binary artists and producers. She is also on UK Music's Diversity Taskforce and is a board member of Moving The Needle, which works to improve female inclusion in the industry.
She says there was hope that the devastating impact of COVID would make industry bosses prioritise inclusion and diversity.
"If anything it did a 360 and went backwards," she tells Sky News.
"Everyone started going for the money again and saying there's too much risk in putting women as headliners."
PHOTO CREDIT: Wendy Wei/Pexels
Eve claims promoters repeatedly tell her that festivalgoers of all genders prefer watching men perform more than women.
"It's about money at the end of the day and we still have old white men gatekeeping the industry," she adds.
Eve Horne says diversity in music has gone backwards since COVID. Pic: We Are The Unheard
John Rostron, chief executive of the Association of Independent Festivals, which represents 105 UK events, says the problem stems from there being a smaller pool of female artists for promoters to pick from.
"A headline slot might be the pinnacle of an artist's live career.
"There are plenty of barriers for any artist to get there, but for women there are maybe triple the number of barriers, so the talent pool at the top is smaller.
"We have to wait for them to come up and then be open to booking them."
The problem gets worse at larger festivals where big acts charge high fees and promoters have to meet those costs with ticket sales - and are also accountable to shareholders.
"You can't say that a male band sells more tickets because they're men," he adds. "But you can say that they sell more tickets than another band when that's been proven to be true”.
Glastonbury will be a storming success! There is obviously nothing that can be done about things this year but, for 2024, I feel there needs to be a concerted effort from every festival to truly address gender inequality. They cannot blame anything or anyone else. They make their own rules when it comes to who to book and what merits a headline slot. There are more than enough incredible women and female-led bands. I think that term ‘female-led’ or ‘female-fronted’ needs to die. They are simply ‘bands’. Booking bands with female members. Making sure that those more than worthy of inclusion are booked. Otherwise, we get the same news and disappointment year after year! It is embarrassment that in 2023 we still have to have these conversations! Each festival that is not doing enough to create gender parity on their bills needs to…
DO a lot better.