Hey Lollapalooza, I’ve got a question for you. Where the ladies at?
Research shows that most music festivals are complete sausage fests, but I was still as shocked as other Twitter users when I scanned Lolla’s 2018 lineup to discover that no women were listed until the fourth row. FOURTH.
How the Chicago-based festival decided to put St. Vincent, who has released five studio albums since 2007, after Lil Uzi Vert and Khalid, who put out their debut albums in 2017, beats me. But what’s worse is that only 38 of the 183 artists on the lineup are women. That’s a tragic 20 percent.
The lineup is undeniably stacked with huge favorites like The Weeknd, Grammys darling Bruno Mars, Travis Scott, and more. But there are surely just as many talented women killing the industry who deserve to have their names in big, bold, headlining type. Camila Cabello’s debut album hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in January, and her single “Havana” peaked at No. 1 on the Hot 100 chart and has stayed in the top 10 of the chart for 31 weeks. So why was her name listed on the fifth row of the lineup, compared to male artists with similar stats like Khalid or Post Malone, who are on the third row?
According to BBC, 80 percent of festival headliners last year were male, and it seems like Lollapalooza isn’t trying to change that anytime soon. Some festivals are trying to reach gender parity on their lineups by 2022, but if a music behemoth like C3, the company that runs Lollapalooza and other festivals like Austin City Limits and Voodoo in New Orleans, decided to fight for equal representation on lineups, then perhaps the industry could have see some real, lasting change.
