Where are all the women headlining music festivals?
None of the original headliners for this summer's major music festivals were women.
Alice Vincent reports
If Lily Allen hadn't stepped up at the last minute to fill in for Two Door Cinema Club's Friday night headline slot at Latitude in July, there would have been no woman headlining a major music festival this summer.
In fact, without Paramore, the American punk rock band fronted by the flame-haired Hayley Williams and Arcade Fire, which featured two women in its Glastonbury line-up, there would be no women gracing major festivals' main stages in the top slot at all.
Across Isle of Wight, Glastonbury, Latitude, Reading and Leeds Festivals, V Festival and Bestival, solo female artists comprise, on average, less than 16 per cent of the total acts playing.
All-female bands make up less than a quarter of that figure, at 3.5 per cent. By comparison, all-male bands occupy nearly 43 per cent of the acts on the six festival line-ups. Mixed bands make up 15.9 per cent, and male solo artists nearly a quarter at 24.3 per cent.
Female artists such as Dolly Parton, Kelis, MIA, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Cate Le Bon have achieved some prominence on festival bills, but the same women musicians are appearing repeatedly over the course of the summer, suggesting there are more playing than there actually are. Take Lily Allen, who took Glastonbury and Latitude's main stages by storm, and will warm up for Paolo Nutini and The Killers' Sunday night slots at V Festival next weekend.
"If you look at aspiring musicians in the past, particularly in the rock, indie and dance worlds, there were more boys than girls trying to make a go of it and therefore more breaking through. Things need to and I believe are changing. Often the most interesting artists at Reading and Leeds are female."
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