Leeds Festival has made its first headline announcements but there still seems to be a lack of female representation.
Reading and Leeds Festival have come out with their list of headline acts for their 2019 festival. The main featured headliners being the Foo Fighters, Twenty One Pilots, The 1975, and Post Malone.
Of the 22 acts announced for the 2019 festivals, only six acts contain female main members, those acts being: Billie Eilish, The Distillers, G Flip, Hayley Kiyoko, Pale waves, and Pvris.
While this year’s line up only has 27% female performers, that is an improvement from 2018’s Leeds Festival, where only 17% of the first announced acts had female members, these being: Wolf Alice, Sigrid, and Dua Lipa.
We asked a group of girls who have spent the last few years enjoying Leeds Festival whether they thought there was enough female representation in the lineups at Leeds Festival. This is what they had to say:
“Definitely not, I’d say a majority of the headliners are usually male fronted bands or rappers, you have the odd one of Dua Lipa or Haim but there’s so many more female musicians they could have on.”
“I definitely think there’s a lack of female artists on the 2018 lineup, but then, since Leeds is typically an indie and rock festival, I don’t think there are many big female artists in this genre.”
“I’ve seen Dua Lipa and Halsey over the last two years I’ve been to Leeds Fest but I’d say they appeal less to their target at Leeds. They try and get more indie bands in so it doesn’t really fit with their vibe because female artists tend to be pop performers. But it would be nice to see some more alternative female performers.”
Perhaps there is a lack of female artists in the rock and alternative genre. We checked the iTunes top 50 albums chart and found that only 11 albums in the charts were by women or had women in the band.
Lack of representation isn’t the only problem facing women at music festivals. A YouGov report taken in June 2018 revealed that 43% of female festival-goers under the age of 40 have experienced unwanted sexual behaviour at a UK music festival.
When we asked our group of girls whether they felt that Leeds Festival was a safe place for women, they gave mixed responses. While two of the girls had never experienced a problem at the festival, one girl told us this:
“I’ve been followed a few times. When I was 16 I ended up seeing the majority of acts on my own on the Sunday and I was fine in the area because people have a really good sense of community there mostly and I love it. But I did get followed back to my tent and had an altercation with a guy. Nothing happened but it freaked me out. There was no point in going to staff about it because they would never have found him.”
Last year there was debate over a Swedish ‘women only’ music festival which gained notoriety on the internet after it crowdfunded over £45,000, however, the festival could not be made a reality due to Sweden’s discrimination laws.
The UK does have it’s own women’s only festival, Women Fest, which was first held in summerset of last August. While your chances of being harassed are much lower here, it might not be for everyone. Woman Fest focuses more on womanhood and community than music and intoxication, involving spiritualism and healing, as well as a “Red Tent” for attendants to “celebrate their cycles.”
Kane Daly 