Linda Coogan Byrne, founder of Why Not Her? commented in The Time’s recent analysis of the shortage of female acts at summer music festivals in 2022 in Ireland.
The data analysis found that just one in four performers at Ireland’s biggest summer music festivals are women.
This year has marked the return of music festivals, which were called off for two years because of pandemic restrictions. Across the top seven festivals just 26 per cent of performers are female, including band members.
Read the full article here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/disappointing-shortage-of-female-acts-at-summer-music-festivals-6xglndgc9
Linda Coogan Byrne , a music industry consultant and founder of Why Not Her, an advocacy group for women in music, said: “There is a lot tied into this. Artists that are played a lot on radio end up getting gigs at festivals, but it is still up to bookers to try find women in the industry because there is so much talent there,” she said. “But it really is an across-the-board effort we need to see. During Covid we had a great opportunity to push Irish female talent, and we saw increases in airtime given to them. So that should be translated into line-ups.”
Coogan Byrne, who previously carried out research on airtime given to women on the radio, added that there are several initiatives such as Key Change, which promotes women and minority groups in music, to help festivals achieve a 50:50 gender balance. Irish Music Week, due to take place in October, has pledged to have an equal gender balance in its line-up this year.
