Against the Current’s Chrissy Costanza talked with Alternative Press about the gender disparity at this year’s Reading & Leeds Festival:
So I started looking into it a little bit more because I didn’t want to speak without knowing what I was talking about. And I saw one site posted, “Who else do you want to see added to the Reading & Leeds lineup?” and I scrolled through the comments. [In] literally 350-something comments, I think there was like a handful of Paramore’s, one PVRIS comment, and that was it as far as girls go. Everything else was male bands and I was like, “Well, we’re all screaming about how there’s no girls on this [festival] and it’s like, you guys, the girls, the fans—I’m watching you guys comment. None of you are asking for girls. None of you—you’re all asking for guys, like every single one of you.” So how is Reading & Leeds supposed to put girls in their festival if you aren’t even supporting each other at this point? If we can make up over half the fans, women are the ones who are most actively commenting on all these things, the most active presences on social media. We have so much power and we’re not using it.
Dear anyone looking to book great artists for your festivals: this thread is full of them.