Glastonbury’s announcement of predominantly male headline acts in the newly released lineup has sparked fury amongst festival-goers and female performers, including Lana Del Rey, who is due to perform at the festival in June.
The list was released on Friday, and includes the Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses and Elton John as the only Pyramid Stage headliners.
While several female artists are slated to perform at the festival, they have not been afforded any of the top spots, with Lizzo set to open for Guns N’ Roses, and Lana Del Rey to headline on the Other stage.
For context, the Pyramid stage is billed by the festival as their “iconic main stage,” whereas the Other stage is the place to catch “alternative headliners.”
Following the announcement, Lana took to Instagram to join a chorus of dissatisfied fans. Responding to Glastonbury’s official Instagram post, which exclusively called out the male headliners, the singer wrote, “Thanks for announcing that I was headlining the other stage. Thumbs up.”
Questions have now been raised about whether Lana will still appear at the festival after the disappointing announcement. The singer took to her own Instagram account to re-share the post, saying, “Well, I’m actually headlining the 2nd stage. But since there was no consideration for announcing that, we’ll see.”
Festival-goers shared in her dissatisfaction at the lack of diversity in the top spots, with one user commenting on Glastonbury’s post, “Imagine not mentioning Lana in the caption she’s the biggest of all headliners,” and another saying, “Please please diversify your line up! This is so disappointing.”
Speaking to The Guardian, festival organiser Emily Eaves said the lack of diversity was a “pipeline problem” in the industry.
“This starts way back with the record companies, radio. I can shout as loud as I like but we need to get everyone on board,” she said.
Despite her comments, Glastonbury has only featured four female headliners since 2010: Beyonce, Florence and The Machine (as a replacement for Foo Fighters who had to pull out), Adele and Billie Eilish.
Evans also said that a female headliner was originally confirmed for the 2023 festival, however the artist pulled out because she had “changed her touring plans.”
Female representation has long been an issue in the music industry. In 2022, The BRIT Awards announced a decision to go ‘gender neutral’, combining male and female artists in all award categories. The decision was made after Sam Smith came out to their fans as gender neutral, posing an issue for The BRITs original gender categorisation.
In 2023, however, the awards show announced an exclusively male line-up for their ‘Artist of the Year’ category, which is widely acknowledged as the most prestigious award of the night.
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