
You can download the full survey [version 1.7] as PDF [333 KB]
The female:pressure FACTS survey is a continuous project, undertaken by volunteer members of the female:pressure network, that quantifies the gender distribution of artists performing at electronic music festivals worldwide. FACTS 2020, released on International Women’s Day 2020, is the fourth edition of the survey, which was first published in 2013, and updated in 2015 and 2017.
Data was provided by the female:pressure Trouble Makers, female:pressure members, and festival organizers. Gender proportions for each festival are assessed for female, male, non-binary, and mixed acts [non-binary for data starting in 2017]. The number of acts are counted per slot of stage time. “Acts” include musical and visual artists or bands who appear on stage, as they are listed in the festival’s program line-up.
We collected data for 393 festival editions [of 158 different festivals] from 2017 to 2019. Adding this to the previous survey data, female:pressure has collected data for 675 festival editions [238 unique festivals in total] from 2012 to 2019 from 44 countries. The proportion of female acts rose from 9.2% in 2012 to 24.6% in 2019. Larger festivals tend to have lower proportions of female acts. Data for 2017 to 2019 show that publicly funded festivals and festivals with female artistic directors have higher proportions of female acts.
Conclusion: We see a steady rise in female acts in electronic music festivals over the past eight years. However, only 25% of all acts are female in comparison to 65% male acts.
FACTS 2020 – Background
FACTS 2020 – Introduction
FACTS 2020 – Methods
FACTS 2020 – Results
FACTS 2020 – Discussion
FACTS 2020 – Acknowledgements
FACTS 2020 – Appendices


If you’d like to contribute festival data to our next survey, please use our data collection form.
If you think our current survey misses some festivals, please feel free to suggest them using the form at the bottom of the page.
Yours truly, the female:pressure Trouble Makers
1. BACKGROUND
The female:pressure FACTS survey is a continuous project—undertaken by volunteer members of the female:pressure network—that quantifies the gender distribution of artists performing at electronic music festivals worldwide. FACTS 2020 is the fourth edition of the survey, which was first published in 2013 and updated in 2015 and 2017.
2. INTRODUCTION
The FACTS survey was initiated in 2013 to address and quantify the deficit in equal opportunity and visibility for female artists in the electronic music scene. The results of FACTS 2013 indicated that barely 10% of acts at electronic music festivals worldwide identified as female, opening up an international discussion about the state of women’s opportunities in electronic music.
In 2015 and 2017, we updated and extended the survey. Although the inequities within the industry had become a popular topic of debate since the 2013 edition, FACTS 2015 demonstrated the continued underrepresentation of female artists at electronic music festivals. FACTS 2017 marked a new, more thorough approach to conducting and presenting the survey as the methods of data collection and analyses were more explicitly defined. The survey was more comprehensive than previous surveys, and the results showed an improving situation regarding the gender balance.
New to FACTS 2020 is the non-binary gender category, as well as data on: the attendance numbers of a festival edition, whether or not it received public funding, and the gender[s] of its artistic director[s]. We collected data from 2017, 2018, and 2019, with more editions from more regions around the globe than in previous FACTS editions. Over the course of 2018 and 2019 our team reached out to all festivals included at least once [in most cases three times], inviting festival organizers to participate by submitting their data. Thirty festival organi7ers responded, more than double the amount who responded for FACTS 2017. We can only speculate why this is, although we hope it is because of increasing publicity and research about gender equality in the music industry. We are happy to have more festivals responding to our call, as it reduces the amount of data that we need to collect ourselves.
In surveying more festivals in more countries than before, we may better see the extent to which inequality is a systemic issue. Structural sexism perpetuates inequality by creating barriers and disincentives for female and non-binary artists, limiting success in the arts to genres and media aligned with the status quo. While this phenomenon is receiving more media coverage today, we believe that measuring trends through the FACTS survey is necessary to understand developments in the electronic music scene and to hold decision-makers accountable within the industry.
In adding the non-binary category to this survey, we confronted an important question during the data collection process: How should we address systemic bias in a direct manner without inadvertently reinforcing the reductive language commonly used? We had many discussions regarding the use of the terms “female,” “non-binary,” and “male,” delving into the meanings that societies place upon these terms, and whether it was useful at all to categorize artists in this way. Ultimately, we adopted these three terms, despite being an organization that recognizes a spectrum of genders beyond these categories, because the industry as a whole generally does not. To address the industry’s inequality, therefore, necessitates the use of language of the industry.
Our FACTS survey, like the female:pressure network, is the result of grassroots activism, conducted independently from any organization and without external funding. The 2020 edition of the survey was undertaken by seven core volunteers, nicknamed the “Trouble Makers,” with the aid of 28 helpers.
3. METHODS
Aims and Objectives
The aim of the present survey was to assess the gender distribution among artists performing at electronic music festivals around the world.
Specifically, we wanted to:
- assess the gender proportions among artists performing at electronic music festivals taking place in the years 2017, 2018, and 2019;
- assess time trends in gender proportions from 2012 to 2019; and
- assess differences in these gender proportions for regions, countries, and other festival characteristics.
Gender proportions are assessed for female, male, non-binary, and mixed acts [non-binary only for data starting 2017].
Data Collection
Data was collected for all countries worldwide with no restrictions. We used a standardized online form to collect single sets of data for each festival edition.
The survey’s focus is on electronic music festivals. The Trouble Makers assembled the list of festivals from previous FACTS surveys, lists of electronic music festivals found online, and suggestions from the female:pressure network and the general public. Festivals were included if they featured a mainly electronic music program. Once a festival was included, all acts were counted regardless of their musical genre.
For each festival, the following data were collected:
- Name of festival;
- World region;
- Country;
- City;
- Year;
- Number of female acts in the line-up;
- Number of male acts in the line-up;
- Number of non-binary acts in the line-up [starting in 2017];
- Number of mixed [two or more genders in one time slot] acts in the line-up;
- Number of unidentified [gender unknown] acts in the line-up;
- Whether public funding was received [starting in 2017];
- Number of attendees [starting in 2017]; and
- Gender of artistic directors [starting in 2017].
The number of acts were counted per slot of stage time. For example: Dasha Rush & Donato Dozzy back-to-back DJ-set: categorized as 1 mixed act. Electric indigo & Thomas Wagensommerer a/v set: categorized as 1 mixed act. Lucrecia Dalt & Gudrun Gut live: categorized as 1 female act.
“Acts” include musical and visual artists or bands who appear on stage, as they are listed in the festival’s program line-up. We did not count installations, film screenings, or discourse programs.
For the purpose of this survey, gender data is distinguished and collected as female [persons using the pronouns she/her], non-binary [persons using the pronouns they/them, or other combinations], and male [persons using the pronouns he/him]. Transgender artists are categorized according to the gender pronouns used in artist bios, social media, etc. We used publicly available biographical data about the artists to determine what pronouns they used, either by visiting their websites and/or social media, or by searching for articles about the artist. Cis-male artists with female aliases/monikers were categorized as male artists if they use the pronouns he/him. In cases where an artist’s pronouns or identity could not be found, the artist was categorized as “unidentified.”
Data was provided by the Trouble Makers, female:pressure members, and festival organizers. Festival organizers were emailed standardized letters over the course of two years explaining the background and the purpose of the survey along with an invitation to enter their festival data into a short online form. To minimize data entry errors, we were able to verify about 18% of the newly collected data [2017 to 2019] by a second or third data count. A margin of tolerance was set at 5% of the mean total number of acts per festival edition. The difference between the first and second count for each gender category should be equal to or less than the tolerance margin, otherwise a third [final] count was done.
Data Analysis
Data was analyzed descriptively. Female, male, non-binary, mixed, and unidentified gender proportions are presented numerically and graphically: overall, by year, by country, by region, and by other festival characteristics. In addition, trends over time for specific festivals [with data for several time points] are presented. Mean [i.e., average] percentages are calculated by adding the number of acts for the specific gender divided by the total number of acts [times 100] for each festival. Due to rounding, numbers presented throughout this document may not precisely add up to 100%.
Festivals were also categorized and analyzed by the total number of acts. To see if gender proportions vary with the size of the festival, we categorized festivals into three groups: small [up to 25 acts], medium [26 to 50 acts], or large [more than 50 acts], as well as into five more refined groups: very small [less than 20 acts], small [20 to 29 acts], medium [30 to 45 acts], large [46 to 90 acts], or very large [more than 90 acts].
For data from 2017 onward, festivals were also categorized according to whether public funding was received, the audience size [attendance numbers], and the gender of the festival’s artistic directors.
4. RESULTS
In this edition of the survey, we collected data for 393 festival editions [of 158 different festivals] from 2017 to 2019. This includes 136 festival editions in 2017, 131 in 2018, and 126 in 2019. Adding this to the previous data, female:pressure has collected data for 675 festival editions [238 festivals] from 2012 to 2019 [Table 1].
Table 1. Number of festivals by year

For 2017 to 2019, festivals from 37 countries were included with 287 [73%] festival editions from Europe and 70 [17.8%] from North America. For 2012 to 2019, festivals from 44 countries were included. Data for 93 festivals were collected only once, while data for 24 festivals was collected at two time points [yearly editions]. For 35, 32, 29, 15, and 8 festivals data was provided at 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 time points, respectively.
The mean [i.e., average] festival size was 58 acts with a minimum of four and a maximum of 726 acts per festival. In total, 39,090 acts are included. For the current period of 2017 to 2019, festivals have a mean of 58 acts [minimum of six, maximum of 468] and a total of 22,708 acts.
Gender Proportions of Festival Acts
For the period from 2012 to 2019 overall, 17.3% of acts are female, 74.0% are male, 6.9% are mixed acts, and 1.5% are unidentified [i.e., acts where the gender could not be identified]. For the newly collected data for festivals from 2017 to 2019, there are 20.5% female acts, 0.7% non-binary acts, 70.3% male acts‚ 6.6% mixed, and 2.0% unidentified acts [Figure 1].
![Figure 1. Gender proportions of festival acts [Left: 2012 to 2019. Right: 2017 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/screen-shot-2020-05-17-at-00.51.22.png?w=1024)
Gender Proportions Over Time
From 2012 to 2019, there is an increase in the number of female artists and a decrease in the number of male artists [Figures 2 and 3].
![Figure 2. Female acts in % over time [2012 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.20.58.png?w=1024)
![Female, male, non-binary, and mixed acts in % over time [2012 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.22.02-1.png?w=1024)
Table 2 shows the number of female, male, non-binary, mixed, and unidentified acts for each year from 2012 to 2019.
Table 2. Female, male, non-binary, mixed, and unidentified acts in % over time

For festivals with data for seven years, we assessed changes over time per festival. Figure 4 shows the percentage of female acts for each festival. There appears to be an overall trend of increased female acts for several festivals. Results for further festivals are shown in Appendix 1.

Gender Proportions for Different Regions
Comparing festivals across regions from 2017 to 2019, there were 21.3% female acts at all European festivals and 17.9% female acts at North American festivals [Figure 5].
![gender proportions for European and North American festivals [2017-2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/screen-shot-2020-03-03-at-22.38.08.png?w=1024)
Results for further regions are shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Gender proportions for all regions [2017 to 2019]
![Gender proportions for all regions [2017 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-13.19.40.png?w=1024)
Gender Proportions by Country
Gender proportions appear quite different when comparing across countries. For example, from 2012 to 2019, festivals in Russia and Mexico have the lowest percentages of female acts [less than 11%] while festivals in Sweden and Austria have the highest percentage [over 20%]. Table 4 shows the proportions of female, non-binary, male, mixed, and unidentified acts by country for 2012 to 2019 and for 2017 to 2019 [only for countries with ten or more festival editions in 2012 to 2019]. Results for further countries are shown in Appendix 2 and results for further countries and festivals are shown in Appendix 3.
Table 4. Gender proportions of acts by country [2012 to 2019 and 2017 to 2019]
![Table 4. Gender proportions of acts by country [2012 to 2019 and 2017 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.37.46.png?w=1024)
Gender Proportions by Size of Line-Up
To assess if gender proportions vary with the size of the festival line-up, the number of total acts was used to categorize festivals into three groups, and then into five more refined groups. The graph on the left in Figure 6 / Table 5 shows that the number of female acts is similar across the three categories, while the graph on the right side of Figure 6 / Table 6 shows five categories.
![gender proportions by festival size in 3 and 5 categories [2017-2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/screen-shot-2020-03-03-at-22.44.12.png?w=1024)
Table 5. Gender proportions by festival size in three categories [2017 to 2019]
![Table 5. Gender proportions by festival size in three categories [2017 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.39.04.png?w=1024)
Table 6. Gender proportions by festival size in five categories [2017 to 2019]
![Table 6. Gender proportions by festival size in five categories [2017 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.40.14.png?w=1024)
Gender Proportions by Gender of Festival Curators
To assess an association between the gender of a festival’s artistic directors and the gender of the performing acts, Table 7 shows data for 2017 to 2019.
Table 7. Gender proportions by the gender of festivals’ artistic directors [2017 to 2019]
![Table 7. Gender proportions by the gender of festival's artistic directors [2017 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.41.09.png?w=1024)
Gender Proportions by Funding
To assess whether gender proportions differ by funding source, we assessed if festivals were publicly funded. Table 8 shows data for 2017 to 2019.
Table 8. Gender proportions by public funding [2017 to 2019]
![Table 8. Gender proportions by public funding [2017 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.42.10-1.png?w=1024)
Gender Proportions by Audience Size
In addition to categorizing festivals by the number of acts, we used the approximate number of visitors [attendance] to classify festivals according to size. Table 9 shows gender proportion by the number of visitors for festivals taking place in 2017 to 2019.
Table 9. Gender proportions by audience size [attendance] [2017 to 2019]
![Table 9. Gender proportions by audience size [attendance] [2017 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.43.17.png?w=1024)
Top 10 Festivals with the Highest Proportions of Female Acts
For the years 2017, 2018, and 2019, we assessed the festivals with the highest proportion of female acts and ranked them. This was only done for festivals with 20 or more acts. Results for the ten highest ranking festivals are shown in Tables 10 to 12. Results for all festivals are shown in Appendix 4.
Table 10. Top ten festivals with highest proportions of female acts in 2017 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Table 10. Top ten festivals with highest proportions of female acts in 2017 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.44.58-1.png?w=1024)
Table 11. Top ten festivals with highest proportions of female acts in 2018 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Table 10. Top ten festivals with highest proportions of female acts in 2017 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-01.46.10.png?w=1024)
Table 12. Top ten festivals with highest proportions of female acts in 2019 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Top ten festivals with highest proportions of female acts in 2019 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-13.29.30.png?w=1024)
Top 10 Festivals with the Highest Proportions of Male Acts
Similarly, we assessed the festivals with the highest proportion of male acts [for festivals with 20 or more acts only]. Results for the ten highest ranking festivals are shown in Tables 13 to 15. Results for all festivals are shown in Appendix 5.
Table 13. Top ten festivals with highest proportions of male acts in 2017 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Top ten festivals with highest proportions of male acts in 2017 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-13.31.54.png?w=1024)
Table 14. Top ten festivals with highest proportions of male acts in 2018 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Top ten festivals with highest proportion of male acts in 2018 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-13.32.58.png?w=1024)
Table 15. Top ten festivals with highest proportions of male acts in 2019 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Top ten festivals with highest proportions of male acts in 2019 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/screen-shot-2020-11-29-at-13.34.10.png?w=1024)
5. DISCUSSION
Summary of the Results
In our present survey assessing festivals acts from 2017 to 2019, we found that 20.5% of all acts were female, 70.3% were male, 0.7% were non-binary, and 6.6% were mixed. The proportion of female acts overall rose from 9.2% in 2012 to 24.6% in 2019.
We see a steady rise in female acts in electronic music festivals over the past eight years. However, only 25% of all acts are female in comparison to 65% male acts.
Comparison with Other Studies
In October of 2019, the Creative Independent’s Willa Köerner and musician René Kladzyk co-authored a survey to gather insight about how to better the music industry. The ten key findings of this survey shed light on the status quo of musicians and industry professionals, particularly in regard to the perceived sustainability of their careers, the state of diversity and inclusion, and necessary future developments. This survey covers a broad spectrum of issues in the music industry from the standpoint of creators, and diversity in line-ups is one of the important aspects. Find the survey at https://thecreativeindependent.com/music-industry-report.
In 2019, Sarah Hildering and Samatha Warren presented research at the Amsterdam Dance Event [ADE] described as “the first-ever independent research into inclusion and diversity within the electronic music industry.” The research presented the percentage of women in “traditional music organizations such as the recording, publishing, and distribution sector,” and thus differs from FACTS, which presents gender proportion data for electronic music festival line-ups. Information about the presentation is available at https://www.amsterdam-dance-event.nl/en/news/first-results-of-the-exclusive-research-into-diversity-and-inclusion-within-the-electronic-music-industry/164769/.
For International Womens’ Day 2019, L’Appel du 8 Mars presented data on gender ratios, mostly pertaining to Parisian clubs and digital music stores. A female:pressure blog post describes that presentation.
The same year [2019], Honey Book presented findings on the average annual earnings for female creatives in the U.S. and Canada. They studied invoices and surveyed freelancers to obtain the data. That report is available at https://www.honeybook.com/risingtide/2019-gender-pay-gap-report.
Also in 2019, Statista Research Department published research on “the gender split of festival-goers in the United Kingdom from 2012 to 2016.” This study differs from FACTS in that it provides gender data of festival audiences rather than performers. That research is available at https://www.statista.com/statistics/282836/gender-distribution-of-visitors-to-uk-music-festivals/.
In 2018, Pitchfork posted gender data on festival line-ups from 2017 and 2018. The study differs from FACTS in that it focuses mostly on multi-genre US-American line-ups. Its scope is therefore narrower than that of FACTS. Twenty line-ups were included for 2018, information for which is available at https://pitchfork.com/features/festival-report/tracking-the-gender-balance-of-this-years-music-festival-lineups/.
Also in 2018, Lazer Guided Reporter posted her research on gender and the music industry. The qualitative research consists of “face-to-face interviews with female members of the music industry [music production, music production lecturing, record label management, composition, DJing], research into festival line ups, and also a content analysis of some major global music magazines.” That research is available at https://lazerguidedreporter.com/2018/02/07/researching-gender-in-music-gendered-space-female-visibility-redesigning-environments/.
In 2017, the Book More Women project was launched. The site provides a variety of resources, including “Best of” lists that contain “the most diverse and balanced festival lineups of the year.” That project is online at https://www.bookmorewomen.com/data.
In 2020, SACEM [the French Society of Authors, Composers, and Publishers of Music] is launching a study on the gender imbalance among their members in an effort to re-balance their membership and reach gender parity. Updates for that study are posted on http://sacem.mj.am/nl2/qzvu/m6ml6.html.
Strengths and Limitations of the Survey
Categorizing festival line-up slots by gender is not as simple as it may seem at first glance, so we developed guidelines for counting as accurately and consistently as possible. Nonetheless, some not-so-easy-to-answer questions inevitably arise. For example: How should we count a slot that is announced under a single, easy to identify artist name, but who actually performed with other musicians, singers, or visual artists with different genders who are not listed in the line-up? Additionally, even if you were present at the performance, you may not have seen everybody on stage. How do ensure accuracy in these instances? Such questions often depend upon insider accounts, leading to varying results for the same festival edition.
Another very frequent phenomenon was the presence of different information about the same festival edition in different media. For instance, a festival’s Resident Advisor page often lists a different number of acts than the Facebook event. In addition, programs are frequently updated as plans change, thus various versions can be found online. Quite a few websites or single web pages disappear, or substantially change over time, making it difficult to find the line-up in instances where initial gender counts were submitted a year or two ago.
On the other hand, it is a huge benefit to have so many helpers who are directly involved in the scene, and therefore can supplement online research with first-hand knowledge.
With eight years of data collection, we have a better look at trends over time, and have a significant advantage over more recently-started surveys.
We would have liked to conduct more data verification than we did. We reviewed 72 of 392 festival editions for the current survey, but lacked the time and resources to recount more editions. Nevertheless, even if some numbers lack the verification we aimed for, the overall results would be only slightly affected. In addition, we assume that any potential errors in counting festival acts are random rather than systematic. Thus, errors should not systematically bias the results in any one direction, but instead even each other out.
Assessing the new data categories of Attendance, Curators, and Public Funding turned out to be extremely difficult without the help of the festivals’ organizers. The publicly available information about these categories is very limited. Most festivals do not disclose the names of their artistic direction team. This again illustrates the importance of communication with festival organizers. We believe that by involving curators and organizers, we can raise awareness and foster reflection about festival curation. In general, we often face a lack of transparency that limits gathering and analyzing data, as well as our ability to catalyze positive action to make the electronic music scene more representative.
Selection bias is probably one of the most significant causes for possible distortion of the results. For example, organizers of festivals with a higher number of female acts might be more willing to take part in the survey, leading to an overestimation of female acts overall. Remedying this bias by counting all electronic music festivals is unfortunately not achievable. In addition, publicly available data for some countries or regions are sparse and thus not representative.
We counted the number of acts for each festival, not the number of persons on stage. Assuming no systematic gender difference in the number of persons in female, non-binary, and male acts, the analysis would yield similar gender proportions if acts or persons are counted. Whether this assumption holds for electronic music is unclear. Collecting the number of persons and not the number of acts [as we did] might lead to different results.
One reason that we are interested in ascertaining whether a festival received public funding was to see if there is any relationship between public funding and the number of female and non-binary artists on the line-up. For example, the Musicboard in Berlin conditions festival funding on following: “The content of the projects must be based on a 50/50 participation of artists [e.g. booking, workshop organizers, participation of artists].” We do not assume all institutional public funding has such requirements, but there are indications in our data that publicly funded festivals have higher proportions of female acts.
Questions that Remain Unanswered
Electronic music festival line-ups, at least in Europe and North America, are overwhelmingly dominated by white artists. This is particularly troubling, as electronic dance music has its origins in Black and Latinx culture. Without these vanguard DJs, artists, and audiences of color, we would not even have the subject of our study today. We are very interested in surveys that look into the overall number of people of color invited to play at such festivals, and the representation of female and non-binary artists of color specifically.
It would be interesting to know if female and non-binary artists are generally booked in “smaller” time slots. It would be difficult to quantify this data, but perhaps a count of the gender of headliners would shed some light on this topic.
As Lazer Guided Reporter mentions in her study, “There is a limiting of space in the industry where women can be visible in positions of musical control.” It would be helpful to have collected more data about festival organizers than we did, but this information was impossible to find for many of the festivals that we included.
Suggestions for Festival Organizers, Artistic Directors, and Artists
- Believe in a multi-faceted and heterogeneous electronic music scene. Strive for a less capitalistic approach to your listeners by supporting a more performance-oriented music culture.
- Book more people of different genders. Book more people of color. If you believe they are unfamiliar to your audience and/or won’t bring in enough money, use your resources to invest in good press work and consider installing local/underground stages and promote a general ethos of inclusivity at your events. Network and collaborate with booking agencies that have diverse rosters and inform yourself about and/or connect with festivals around the world that have diverse line-ups. Inform yourself about maker spaces and workshops that serve underrepresented grounds in music production and skills. These types of community spaces have important knowledge to share.
- On the organizational level, install a mixed-gender team to program your festival’s line-up.
- If you are interested in having a diverse line-up that reflects the state of the art in electronic music, you might take actions such as making a public call for participation and specifically make diverse representation a criterion for selection. Be intentional and transparent about your inclusivity goals.
- Support your local underground scene by connecting with record dealers and music journalists who are experts in the field.
- If you have the capacity, include discussion and skill-sharing programs to promote diversity and inclusion in the electronic music industry. Host workshops on topics such as music production, gear selection, music promotion, and other music business skills. By facilitating skill-sharing workshops, you can foster a community where budding artists can connect with one another and the scene. You may even cultivate the skills of artists who may play at your festival in the future. We believe that the relationship between artists and festival promoters will change for the better as a result. Workshops and discussions can be funded in a variety of ways, from ticket sales to donations to institutional funding from socio-cultural programs, for example.
- Ensure safe working conditions and accountability at your festival by training personnel in cultural sensitivity and inclusion, so that all artists are treated with respect, regardless of race or gender. Consider often-overlooked details such as cooperative and safe child-care for the families of artists and staff and gender-neutral toilet facilities.
- Initiatives like the Clubcommission Berlin who represent the gateway between clubs, promoters, industry and cultural policy players and engage with the needs and perspectives of the different club and festival stakeholders, could invite these stakeholders collaboratively to establish guidelines that may be developed into a certification. If a festival complies with such guidelines, they would be able to promote their events with the logo and certification. Here are the commission guidelines.
- We would like to see widespread adoption of a “Code of Conduct,” a guideline for best practices for festivals to accommodate the societal and cultural implications that their programs, advertising, and publications produce, by electronic music festivals. We believe it is never and has never been “just about the music.” Festivals have interests such as: obtaining fame or relevance, having economic success, or promoting particular “agendas”—many times of personal importance— such as the advancement of a genre or political worldview, among others. A good example of such a code was posted in 2018 by We Have a Voice.
- We have some suggestions for artists themselves. Connect yourself with local and/or global networks and seek out resources for female and non-binary artists, many of which are listed on the female:pressure website.
- To artists in positions of relative cultural power, in particular white cis-men, we applaud those of you who have shown solidarity with female and non-binary colleagues by boycotting festivals when there are line-ups fail to be diverse or inclusive. We think strategies such as this are effective at making promoters and curators question their policies!
Disclaimer
We performed this survey to the best of our knowledge, trying to validate and cross-check as much data possible, often using festivals’ websites showing the line-ups and programs. We welcome any feedback in case of accidentally erroneous data.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Core Survey Team
Angelika Lepper [Utting am Ammersee]
Mary Fischer [Berlin]
Meg Wilhoite [San Francisco]
Michelle Endo [Washington, D.C.]
Stephanie Roll [Berlin]
Susanne Kirchmayr [Vienna]
Tanja Ehmann [Berlin]
Graphic Design
Ale Hop [Berlin]
Press
Noëmie Burel [Berlin]
Data Collection Helpers
Aiko Okamoto [Berlin]
Alice Laurent Camena [Rennes]
Annelyse Gelman [Austin, TX]
Bianca Ludewig [Berlin]
Caro Churchill [Manchester]
Christina Nemec [Vienna]
Claire Lim [New York, NY]
Corina MacDonald [Montréal]
Claire Monod [Lyon]
Daniela Seitz [Berlin]
Ece Özel [Istanbul]
Evgenia Nedosekina [Moscow]
Franziska Plückhan [Berlin]
Janina Schütz [Berlin]
Kim Pohas [Los Angeles]
Lisa Schnuppofsky [Montréal]
Maxi Allesch [Vienna]
Natalia San Juan [Barcelona]
Olivia Louvel [London]
Paulina Lasa [Mexico City]
Rona Geffen [Berlin]
Saira Raza [Atlanta, GA]
Sarah Martinus [Berlin]
Sarah Roellinger-Shaikh [Cologne]
Vidisha Saini [New Delhi]
Yulka Plekhanova [Berlin]
Yvonne Kiely [Galway]
Zoey Vero [Berlin]
plus the many individuals who sent data using our online form. Thank you!
7. APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Gender proportions for all festivals by year [2012 to 2019]
![Gender proportions for all festivals by year [2012 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/appendix1.png?w=97)
Appendix 2: Gender proportions by country and year [2012 to 2019]
![Gender proportions by country and year [2012 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/appendix2.png?w=317)
Appendix 3: Gender proportions by country, festival and year [2012 to 2019]
![Gender proportions by country, festival and year [2012 to 2019]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/appendix3.png?w=97)
Rankings of Festivals by Female Proportion [2017 to 2019]
Ranking of festivals by female proportion 2017 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Ranking of festivals by female proportion 2017 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/appendix4-1.png?w=589)
Ranking of festivals by female proportion 2018 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Ranking of festivals by female proportion 2018 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/appendix4-2.png?w=591)
Ranking of festivals by female proportion 2019 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Ranking of festivals by female proportion 2019 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/appendix4-3.png?w=596)
Rankings of Festivals by Male Proportion [2017 to 2019]
Ranking of festivals by male proportion 2017 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Ranking of festivals by male proportion 2017 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/appendix5-1.png?w=590)
Ranking of festivals by male proportion 2018 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Ranking of festivals by male proportion 2018 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/appendix5-2.png?w=591)
Ranking of festivals by male proportion 2019 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]
![Ranking of festivals by male proportion 2019 [for festivals with at least 20 acts]](https://femalepressure.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/appendix5-3.png?w=596)
