Glastonbury Organiser Emily Eavis ‘Wants To Address The Gender Imbalance’ On Festival Line-Ups

Emily Eavis has said she “wants to address the gender imbalance” on festival line-ups, explaining that she believes Glastonbury is “on top of” the situation.

It’s no secret that many major music festivals have lacked female acts, particularly when it comes to headliners, and Emily has now claimed this is something she’s determined to fix.

Speaking to BBC Newsbeat, she said: “We really want to address the imbalance in those areas.

“It’s a long-term project and we’re trying to get the message through to everyone who’s booking bands across the festival.

“For some stage bookers it’s harder because it’s not a conscious thing. If the stage happens to be all male, you could just say that’s the way it turned out.

“We say you have to really think about it and try and be conscious of the balance when you’re booking. We’re making progress.”

“We are on top of it,” she concluded. “Sometimes it means people booking acts who are slightly more out of genre [than] they’re comfortable with.”

In recent years, the Eavis family has booked a series of big name female acts, with Beyoncé topping the bill in 2011, before Florence + The Machine’s last-minute bump up to the top spot in 2015, which took place when Foo Fighters’ frontman Dave Grohl broke his leg just a week before the event.

Then, as if we could forget, superstar Adele broke her strict no-festivals rule to delight fans at the Pyramid State last year.

While none of this year’s headline acts are female, the xx - with Romy Madley Croft - and ‘Roar’ superstar Katy Perry are on the second row of the line-up poster.