- Music
- 24 Jan 18
The Irish DJ has long been vocal about the need for promoters to address the gender imbalance at festival line-ups.
Taking to Twitter, Annie Mac (who runs her own festival in Malta) called out Wirless festival (which is hosted in London every summer) for only having three female artists on its bill, compared to dozens of male artists.
"a 3 day festival. and 3 female acts," she said. "the shortsightedness of this is staggering. how did the organisers not think this could be an issue? especially when there is SO many brilliant female rap and grime artists coming through? Where is Stefflon Don? Where is IAMDBB? MsBanks?"
In a follow-up tweet, she continuned: ".@WirelessFest please can you give us female rap fans and the aspiring female rappers of the UK some answers."
a 3 day festival. and 3 female acts. the shortsightedness of this is staggering. how did the organisers not think this could be an issue? especially when there is SO many brilliant female rap and grime artists coming through? Where is Stefflon Don? Where is IAMDBB? MsBanks?
— Annie Mac (@AnnieMac) January 23, 2018
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. @WirelessFest please can you give us female rap fans and the aspiring female rappers of the UK some answers.
— Annie Mac (@AnnieMac) January 23, 2018
Back during the summer, ahead of her appearance at Electric Picnic, Annie Mac spoke with Hot Press about her efforts to spread light on gender disparity at festivals.
“It’s something that I’m always thinking about," she said. "Not even that consciously, just because I am a woman and I do notice the lack of women working in this industry. Most promoters are men. There’s a huge majority of people who book festivals, who promote festivals, who are men. We need more women in those roles. I have my own festival, I don’t know any other women out there who have that, although there’s an amazing woman in Ireland called Avril Stanley, who runs Body & Soul and she’s being doing a brilliant job. But we need more.” You can read the full interview here.