Number of male acts playing Glastonbury 2023 "nearly double" that of female acts

The number of male acts playing this year's Glastonbury Festival is nearly double that of female acts, a new report has found.

The report from Slingo found a hugely disproportionate number of male-fronted bands and solo artists set to play at the festival’s 51st edition later this month from June 21 - 26.

Across the festival’s 12 most popular stages, 182 male acts or bands with a higher number of male artists are due to perform, in comparison to just 100 female or female-dominating bands.

Out of those 12 stages, which include The Pyramid Stage, Arcadia, The Park Stage, and West Holts, Slingo found just 10 acts with an equal number of male to female members.

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Glastonbury’s Glade stage was found to be most disproportionate with a huge 32 male-dominating acts set to play across the weekend, and just five female acts.

“Now the full line-up has been released, there is a noticeable discrepancy between the number of female and male acts, despite the festival pledging in 2019 to try and make their future line-ups gender-balanced,” says Dom Aldworth, Head of Brand Marketing at Slingo.

In March, after Glastonbury revealed its initial line-up including all-male headline acts, the festival was criticised for its imbalanced ratio of male to female artists.

Glastonbury’s co-organiser Emily Eavis commented that they were trying their best to book female acts, but asserted that there is an industry “pipeline” problem.

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Statistics made by The Guardian showed that 52% of the first 54 names on the line-up were male. It included headliners Guns ‘N Roses, Arctic Monkeys, and Elton John.

“Glastonbury has confirmed the 2024 line-up will feature two female headliners, with the lack of female headliners this year attributed to a potential headliner pulling out,” says Aldworth.

“However, unless festivals commit to making the effort to recognise and platform the numerous talented women of the industry on some of the biggest stages in the world, Glastonbury won’t be the last festival to receive criticism for their line-ups.”

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Assistant Editor, follow her on Twitter