Women Made Up 27% of Music Festival Acts From 2020 to 2021, According to Study
A new study conducted by female:pressure revealed that 27% of music festival acts in 2020 and 2021 were female, an increase of 18% from 10 years ago.
The data collected represented countries worldwide and with no restrictions, using a standardized form to collect single sets of data. The focus of the survey was from 109 different electronic music festivals and 159 festival editions. Once a fest was included in the data collection, the acts were counted regardless of their musical genre. They did not count installations, film screenings or discourse programs.
With compounding pressure being placed on major festivals and venues around the world to be more inclusive to women, transgender, and non-binary individuals, female:pressure's "FACTS" study showed an increase in female bookings at festivals. According to the study, females only represented 9% of acts in 2012, while men made up 82%.
In 2020 and 2021 across Europe and North America, female:pressure reported a 30.6% clip of female acts at European festivals and 22.2% at North American events.
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Female acts in Europe and North America in 2020 and 2021.
The top festivals in 2020 and 2021 with the highest proportions of female acts were Colombia's Festival En Tiempo Real, and Germany's Dystopie Festival and 3hd. Conversely, the events with the most amount of male acts included American nautical fest Holy Ship (USA), BPM Festival Costa Rica, and South Africa's Wolfkop Weekender.
Interestingly, the study showed that festivals which had the most women had more non-binary acts. Only one, Medellín's Freedom Festival, had non-binary representation across the festivals of highest proportion of males in 2020 and 2021.
Read female:pressure's full study here.
