CMA is All Talk When It Comes to Including Females in Festival Lineup
The CMA has officially released the Nissan Stadium lineup for the CMA Music Festival coming up the 2nd week in June, and despite all of the talk of diversity and the inclusion of female acts in country, the lineup remains painfully lacking in female representation once again.
Out of a total of 19 performers, only three are female (Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Kelsea Ballerini), and one is partially female fronted (Little Big Town). Broken down, that gives females 18.4% representation at the event, as first pointed out by Windmills Country. This percentage doesn’t include any of the side stages at the festival, but the stadium stage is where the telecast footage is shot, meaning the lack of female diversity will also translate to the television special for the fest that usually airs in August. Breaking the numbers down even further, two of the three female acts that did make the lineup are featured on Thursday—the day that is usually the least-attended.
Despite how terrible the numbers are, the CMA can still claim improvement though. Last year, the main stage boasted a whole of one female act when it was announced—Wynonna with her “Big Noise” band. The Band Perry, Lady Antebellum, and Little Big Town, who all have female members, also played the event, and Carrie Underwood was added as a late edition. But out of 21 total acts in 2015, the female representation was deplorable.
Perhaps it’s too much to ask for 50% female representation, but the CMA could at least feature one female act on the primary Saturday and Sunday lineups. Also when you look at the undercard you see 2nd tier acts such as Chris Young, Cole Swindell, and Brett Eldredge, so why couldn’t the upsurging Cam get a spot, or Maren Morris with the surprising success of her single “My Church”? Why not Maddie & Tae or Kacey Musgraves?
Carrie Underwood thinks she knows why.
“You’re at a festival and they will talk about potentially having another woman on there and then they are like, ‘No, no, we already have one. We can’t have two,'” Underwood told CBS News recently. “I don’t understand that mentality.”
Carrie Underwood was talking to CBS about how the ACM’s have chosen to make their “Party for a Cause” first day lineup to be all women this year.
“I have been at places where they wanted me to play before a guy, just because it was a guy,” Underwood said. “Someone who hasn’t necessarily sold as much or done as much or been around as long. And I am like, ‘No!’ It has nothing to do with ego. It just makes no sense to me.”
Gary Bongiovanni, the President of Pollstar agrees. “It would be foolish to put an all-male lineup on if there’s a significant demand for female artists and there certainly is. Why would you have a country music festival and not have Kacey Musgraves or Cam or any of the newer acts coming up?”
That’s the same question many are asking while looking at the main stage lineup for the 2016 CMA Festival.
Thursday, June 9:  Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, Kelsea Ballerini, Miranda Lambert, and Rascal Flatts
Friday, June 10: Eric Church, Sam Hunt, Chris Stapleton, Carrie Underwood, and Hank Williams, Jr.
Saturday, June 11: Chris Young, Cole Swindell, Florida Georgia Line, and Blake Shelton
Sunday, June 12: Little Big Town, Thomas Rhett, Brett Eldredge, Keith Urban, and Luke Bryan.
Brian
March 30, 2016 @ 8:42 am
I’ll say one thing, Friday June 10th is the best night to be at the show. That lineup is hands down the best one and there is even a built in bathroom break/beer run with Sam Hunt.
Charlie
March 30, 2016 @ 8:48 am
You need to organize that on social media and make it a mass walkout during Sammie’s set!
#HuntForABeer
#IBreakForSammie
Or somesuch.
Andrew
March 30, 2016 @ 9:31 am
Haha, yeah, Friday is the only day I would even consider going to- especially since Hank Jr. performs so few concerts. #AshamedOfSammie
I would love to see Kacey Musgraves live one day, she’s one of the best, if not the best, female country singers out there.
Andrew
March 30, 2016 @ 9:55 am
Also, Eric Church and Carrie Underwood would both be fine- I don’t have a real problem with their music.
Josh
March 31, 2016 @ 7:32 am
Kacey is awesome live. Definitely a must see.
Cilla
March 30, 2016 @ 8:48 am
Talk about being tone Deaf! If the CMA festivals would show Any representation of female country singers,then that would be a Good Look for the festival….nope,not gonna happen.
Ignorance is bliss when it comes to trying to show SOME diversity with promoting these festivals. Sad.
Somer
March 30, 2016 @ 8:57 am
You may want to add that it was Carrie’s idea to have the All Female ACM Party for a Cause day! Probably wouldn’t have happened if she didn’t ask for it!
Paula
March 30, 2016 @ 11:18 am
Good idea but the she choose the pop gals not singer songwriters. Thank God for Brandy Clark but what about Kacey, Ashley Monroe, Sunny Sweeney, etc. Also it would be nice if Carrie took females out on tour like Miranda has done for the last few years. Carrie’s current opening acts aren’t strong & would be a real opportunity for a great female act.
JC Eldredge
March 30, 2016 @ 8:59 am
I’ve never been, so I don’t know how long Carrie gets to perform, but it would be pretty awesome if she came out, performed one song and had several other female artists backstage and let them each come out and do a song. Make some sort of statement like “since the CMAs won’t support women, I will”. Then they could all join together and sing “It’s A Man’s World” and throw tampons or Midol PMS into the audience…. OK maybe not that last part, by you get my point.
Casey K
March 30, 2016 @ 9:40 am
If they sold single day tickets, Friday night would be the night to go for sure. The artists get about 35 minutes each to perform and it would be awesome if Carrie would honor other women artists like that! LOL. We go to Nashville for CMA every year but stopped going to the stadium shows because of the lineups being so horrible. We prefer the Riverfront Stage as well as the other smaller ones with better acts. That’s where we discovered Cam last year.
Lunchbox
March 30, 2016 @ 9:55 am
that’s a lot of bro country..i thought this shit was done?
Cilla
March 30, 2016 @ 10:11 am
I agree about the “Bro Country” lineup….but unfortunately promoters feel that is the biggest money maker for this festival.
Wouldn’t it be Awesome to have one full day of female country singers for THIS festival.
Let’s get to see Ashley Monroe,Casey Musgrave and maybe Brandy Clark along with veterans like Wynona and Martina McBride. Just a thought.
Erik North
March 30, 2016 @ 3:22 pm
Apparently not; I feel that any reports about bro country’s demise are greatly exaggerated. And this is especially true with this testosterone CMA Fest line-up, where the women have been given (pardon the pun) a Bro Job.
Trigger
March 30, 2016 @ 8:22 pm
Compared to 2013, Bro-Country has by far been relegated to a subgenre of country as opposed to the only thing you will hear on country radio 24 hours a day. Of course it will still linger around for a while longer because it’s easy to write and manufacture, and Nashville has no new ideas. But it is not nearly as dominant as it was a few years ago. Thomas Rhett, Brett Eldredge, Sam Hunts, etc. are much more of the R&B, Metro-Bro variety.
Erik North
March 31, 2016 @ 6:39 am
On this point, I certainly can’t dispute that. Along the same lines, one could argue that Metro-Bro is what Bro-Country has kind of morphed into. But all the same, It’s still as bothersome as hell to hear these overgrown juvenile delinquents still refer to grown-up women who are 18-21 years old as “GIRL” in what passes for their “songs.”
And worst of all, the CMA, and the whole country music industry, continues to sell its best female artists, and potential superstars of the future, by limiting how many of them way short by limiting their presence at the CMA Music Festival because it thinks this obsession with all things Bro (whether it’s Bro-Country or Metro-Bro, or whatever else anyone wishes to call it) is going to last forever. It isn’t.
Judd
March 30, 2016 @ 10:18 am
Why not boycott if your underwood?
Say Whaa
March 30, 2016 @ 10:21 am
It’s tricky, because that bill is filled with huge stars. There is not one female up-and-comer close to as big in terms of overall star power (as well as body of hits) as any of the men on that lineup.
[You can mock Cole Swindell for the Luke Bryan gig, but the guy has backed up his five radio number ones with pretty good sales figures, especially for the era. Same with Eldredge. Young also sells well]
The only “weak” spot from a marquee standpoint is, unfortunately, another female: Kelsea Ballerini. I have a feeling removing a woman in order to add another female performer is not what people are clamoring for.
Now, is there something to be said for creating a more well-rounded show? Absolutely. Not denying the value there. What I will deny is the idea that huge female DRAWS were left out due to a conscious or subconscious desire to only book men.
— On a broader level, it’ll be interesting to see whether acts like Cam and Maren Morris can parlay the clear commercial interest in their singles into more overarching star power. It hasn’t really happened yet. They’re still comparatively invisible on social media and subjectively don’t quite feel like “stars” who have top-selling country singles.
Kelsea Ballerini hasn’t connected nearly as well with the buying audience, yet she still feels bigger in star wattage than Maren and Cam.
That perhaps speaks to what I’m arguing about single-to-star power conversion. She’s been branded in a way that makes her bigger than her music (don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t call her a big star, and she’s certainly not as big as the hacky Taste Of Country type blogs would have you believe), whereas Cam actually seems *smaller* than her songs.
Trigger
March 30, 2016 @ 11:45 am
They just made a surprise announcement that Steven Tyler will be added to the lineup, making the ratio for females even less. I just don’t think replacing Brett Eldredge, Steven Tyler, or Rascal Flatts with Cam, Kacey Musgraves, or someone like Martina McBride would hurt the attendance. I think the same people go either way. I understand you need big names for an event like this, but you also have a responsibility to the public, especially if you’re the CMA, which is supposed to being doing what it can to promote ALL country music.
Erik North
March 30, 2016 @ 5:36 pm
Well, there goes the neighborhood……
Amanda
March 30, 2016 @ 10:22 am
Maddie & Tae did get a two-song acoustic set sandwiched between Randy Houser and Lee Brice last year at CMA Fest on Friday night.
Typically, 25 acts are slated for the stadium shows, meaning that there could be 5-6 more announced. Fingers crossed that there are more star-studded acts or just people with talent, in general, added to the schedule. This schedule has become so predictable in the last few years….it’s time to mix it up a bit.
During the past few years, they’ve had a “legacy” act kick-off the show, which is the shortened time slot Wynonna, Alan Jackson, Travis Tritt, Alabama, Clint Black, Charlie Daniels, and several others received. Hands down the best performances of the evening…and not a single one of them are ever aired on the ABC telecast. The fact that Sam Hunt followed Alan Jackson during last year’s lineup was absolutely laughable.
Convict charlie
March 30, 2016 @ 1:43 pm
If you read finding her voice by Robert k oermann he details the female representation in country music history. It’s about 450 pages of small, fine print. The first edition covers to the mid 90’s that I had read but there’s an updated version that goes farther that I have not read.
In the history of the genre average is about 15% for females. Been times where it’s been as high as 1/3 when Loretta and dolly and many others were stars.
People may want to fight about it but it’s just a fact. I don’t have answers on how to change it or guesses as to how it can change.
Jordan K
March 30, 2016 @ 2:54 pm
I’m not a big fan of affirmative action, at all. I am in favor of equal opportunity though, so when people push gender or racial-based employment numbers it’s really irritating, because it is a very superficial way to look at people, as opposed to their talents and skills. Same goes with music, representation should reflect skill and really popularity. But if the numbers are bought and paid for by the biggest names with the most money (labels, etc.) then the talent pool is obviously skewed. If you’re reading this and saying it sounds like much ado about nothing, you may be right, but I just wanted to point out that bias goes both ways, and no quota should be set to meet. But these idiots running the country music scene are the reason Nashville music mostly sucks now-a-days, so I guess at least they’re consistent in all aspects. Sucky.
Trigger
March 30, 2016 @ 8:24 pm
I don’t think it would be fair to anyone to call for a quota on female performers etc., but like you said, if in a job interview quality mattered over gender, then it might be 80% female on the main stage at CMA Fest in my opinion.
Jordan K
March 31, 2016 @ 5:32 am
You’re absolutely right. Not sure about 80% but then again I guess that’s why we’re here, it’s all incredibly subjective.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
March 30, 2016 @ 5:43 pm
man, Sham Hunt is going to stick out more than a frog in a bowl pf Spaghetti on Friday… that’s the only day that the lineup looks even tolerable, but with Church, Stapleton, and Jr. it looks like a ton of fun, and Sham Hunt’s set will be the perfect chance to go get some booze or use the loo, or clamp a vice grip on your nipples… really anything’s better than listening to Sham Hunt.
Jordan K
March 31, 2016 @ 5:35 am
clamp a vice grip on your nipples… that’s freaking awesome
DJ Staci
March 30, 2016 @ 10:53 pm
Last year at Stagecoach Festival, Miranda Lambert said during her performance that she was happy to see so many females on the roster. As the only female country DJ at Stagecoach, I’m sad to say producers opted for an all-male country DJ line-up this year :-/ Hmmmm….Now to see this really ticks me off.
Jake W
March 31, 2016 @ 6:54 am
Nope, Saturday is a sausage fest. Well I think the thing is… Only girls male and female listen to most of those pop country acts, seems like a pretty face is chosen over musical quality. Only time they seem to like women is when they sing revenge and girl power songs. What a shame.
Charles Murphy
April 1, 2016 @ 2:08 am
Not sure what’s worse, less diversity on the female front or that Cole Swindell has a slot.