Twitter Trolling Is Hurting, Not Helping The Cause For Women At Country Festivals
“Just book more women! Why is this so hard?”
This is the question many women artists and their fans ask when the lineups of certain festivals in country music and beyond are released, and there is a clear imbalance between the amount of male and female performers, or in certain circumstances, no women performers at all, or none presented as headliners.
This was also the question Saving Country Music posted in an extensive, 50-paragraph article posted on the subject entitled The Complex Issue of Achieving Gender Parity in Live Music on March 3rd. Complied from many conversations with promoters, artists, individuals in the music industry looking to achieve more equality for women performers, and information taken from industry panel discussions on the subject, the article presented many solutions and ideas for how to bridge the gap between men and women at music festivals, including the importance of reaching out to festivals with gender imbalance with suggestions of performers who could easily fit in their lineups, festival grading platforms that can encourage and reward improvements on gender imbalance, and pledge systems that can create accountability from festival promoters.
Of course all of these initiatives are voluntary on the part of the festivals and promoters, but are important discussion points on how to tackle a problem that is much more complex than simply expecting festivals to book more women due exclusively to public pressure, especially if that pressure is coming from individuals who do not reside in a festival’s patronage to begin with.
But one important point that was perhaps glossed over from the discussion—and one that has come sharper into focus due to recent public shaming and attacks on certain festivals and venues—is the role that certain women performers and their booking agents are playing in the problem by refusing to perform at festivals that have an existing gender disparity.
This shouldn’t be taken as harsh criticism of these performers or their booking agents for refusing to play certain festivals, or blaming them for the issue of gender disparity. Every artist and their management has the right to choose the events they believe are best for them. However it does illustrate the complexity of achieving gender parity for certain festivals, especially if festivals actively seeing to book more women performers are in a genre or subgenre where women performers are in short supply and being refused by the few women acts that do exist, especially if they’re being refused because the event has been labeled as a “sausagefest” or a “man fest” by the artist or the industry.
Certain women and their representatives simply just don’t want to play certain events where the crowds are thought to be too rowdy, or not receptive to women artists. As activist journalists, advocates, fans, and artists themselves go after certain festivals and promoters for too few women on their lineups, often promoters behind-the-scenes are frustrated they cannot find enough women to play their events and achieve their own gender goals. The dilemma is often especially difficult in headliner slots. The idea that certain festivals are poor venues for women performers ultimately becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, eventually affecting the undercard of openers as well as promoters try to curate a festival on chemistry, but few or no women headliners are willing to play.
In May of 2016, Saving Country Music took a deep dive into the issue of the lack of women in the Texas/Red Dirt music scene. Oklahoma-based artist Samantha Crain questioned the lack of women on the lineup for the Medicine Stone Festival, annually sponsored by the the band The Turnpike Troubadours, and artist Jason Boland. The festival only had one woman booked out of 29 total artists in 2016. Even by the most conservative of expectations, the criticism was warranted. However the issue was one the festival organizers had identified themselves, and attempted to rectify to no avail. Ryan Engleman, the guitarist for the Turnpike Troubadours said in response, “Just FYI – we tried to get 6 different female artists to this festival. Jamie [Lin Wilson] was the only one that worked out.”
Another Oklahoma event called Green Country Jam coming up in May announced a 2018 lineup with no women on the lineup at all. When fans questioned the decision on Facebook, the festival responded, “We asked a few. They don’t like playing festivals.”
After the incident with the Medicine Stone Festival in 2016, Saving Country Music regularly began to reach out to festivals in the region that exhibited a lack of women performers with specific suggestions of artist who would be appropriate to their event. Often promoters would respond that they were aware of the issue and wanted to rectify it, but were regularly turned down by the women they looked to book (including ones Saving Country Music suggested), often with the women or their representatives citing the concern that the festival would not be appropriate for their music.
When Saving Country Music published the previously-mentioned article “The Complex Issue of Achieving Gender Parity in Live Music” on March 3rd, even more festival promoters reached out, agreeing that they have experienced difficulty booking women artists, not just from some getting turned down, but from being asked exorbitant fees to book them, sometimes at two and three multipliers of their market value.
Seeing these events as less than ideal, sometimes women will only commit to playing so called “sausagefests” at a financial premium. Other women, actively trying to close the gap between what they make and what their festival headlining male counterparts make, will insist on getting paid the same as larger-drawing headliners, even if their confirmed market draw is much lower.
This is what independent country Margo Price has been insisting on, as well as making threats of insisting on an inclusion rider at events she plays, meaning if a certain percentage of the other performers are not female, she won’t perform.
Though this stance might be admirable in regards addressing the pay gap issue between men and women in music, it also commonly prices out cash strapped independent festival promoters restricted by tight budgets that are tied to an artist’s box score, i.e. the amount of money an artist has proven they can make in a certain media market, verified by companies such as Billboard and Pollstar who catalog such data for promoters and the industry. Meanwhile major corporate festivals such as Stagecoach in California, or Bonnaroo in Tennessee can pay the enhanced asking prices by these women due to much larger budgets, and are even sometimes afforded discounts by women performers because these more diverse festivals are seen as advantageous to play as opposed to “sausagefests.”
Independent promoters are already being squeezed by soaring talent costs, swelling competition, increased regulations, mounting safety concerns, and a myriad of other issues that often make it a difficult yearly decision to even keep going. The independent festival space is being encroached upon by LiveNation and the multitude of regional promotional companies it has recently purchased a 51% stake in. LiveNation is purposely trying to shade independent promoters out of the festival business completely. Artists are guaranteed payment by festivals before a booking is finalized, but festivals are guaranteed nothing. If a lineup fails to garner public support and not enough tickets are sold, or other unforeseen circumstances take place beyond their control, the promoters are the ones that incur the injury.
Making it even more difficult for independent promoters facing a gender imbalance is the method in which advocates for the issue label their festivals and organization as “sexist,” “discriminatory,” “misogynist,” or “wanting to keep music male” without understanding the complexities of the issue, or doing cursory explorations into just how much effort an organization has made to secure women performers. Often the promoters of an events are women themselves, or have women on their staff.
By attempting to publicly shame these festivals and institutions and hoping the public does not give their patronage to them, activists are helping to undercut a very fundamentally important part of the independent music ecosystem, which is independently-owned festivals willing to book local, regional, and up-and-coming acts to cultivate music talent for the future. Too few female acts on a festival lineup is better than no festival at all where both men and women lose the opportunity to hone their craft, and find new fans.
The default for many activists on this issues appears to be to assume that these festivals are not booking women due to discrimination. Though discrimination against women may very well be the cause in certain circumstances, this is an especially pointed accusation to level at a festival or organization based on nothing more than a percentage of women on a lineup. Sometimes the festival just needs to be made aware of the issue to focus on improvement in future seasons.
As has been established before, certain genres such as Texas Music simply don’t have enough women performers to achieve ideal women representation—a more global issue that must be addressed throughout the scene as opposed to just singling out specific festivals. However when the issue is initially broached in a combative manner via social media trolling and public shaming, the opportunity for a pragmatic or positive dialog with the promoter on the issue is often lost, as is the possibility of crafting a solution to the problem.
As one local promoter told Saving Country Music after being publicly shamed multiple times for a lack of women on their lineup, and after making an improvement from previous years in their representation of women, “Maybe next year we won’t book any women at all.” Where once a level of cooperation on the issue existed, now there is a feeling of acrimony. Instead of breeding understand, the trolling of promoters is building walls. In certain instances verified by Saving Country Music, specific women artists have trolled festivals and venues for not booking enough women, when those very same women or their representatives have turned down or refused bids from the very same promoters they’re trolling.
“I’m about 100% sure half the female artists don’t know anything about what the agent is doing,” one festival promoter told Saving Country Music. “This year we will roll out our line up and at this point only have one regional female act. It’s gonna look bad and we feel bad but the industry is making it this way!”
Due to the combative nature of the trolls on Twitter, promoters struggling to book women no longer want to speak on the matter publicly, fearing further retribution, or potentially damning future bookings of women from either the performers themselves or their agents. However Saving Country Music was able to verify through communications with certain festival promoters and corroborating box score data from Billboard and Pollstar that aggressive bids are being made to multiple women performers by festivals specifically being targeted by trolls, and they have been repeatedly turned down.
Meanwhile certain independent festivals are being targeted by trolls—including some that do have women on their lineups and/or that have shown improvement over previous lineups—while other festivals, including more mainstream festivals that have no women on the lineups at all, are not being trolled, speaking to what appear to be personal grudges with particular festivals as opposed to a pragmatic approach to solving a complex problem industry wide.
To mitigate or resolve the gender disparity at festivals, it is going to take a holistic approach that includes dialogue and outreach to promoters. Festival promoters should not be absolved of all blame for exacerbating the gender discrepancy we’ve seen grow in the last few years. They are on the front lines of the problem, and in an unique position to help solve it. But booking agents and some women performers also have to take responsibility as well, especially headliner-level acts being willing to play festivals actively looking to book more women to help integrate “sausagefests.” Otherwise trolls—well intentioned or not—are simply drawing battle lines that neither side will want to cross, compounding the problem.
wayne
April 13, 2018 @ 11:05 am
Well, here we go yet again. Why don’t we just make a law that any concert venue or any gathering where ripples through the air chords and lyrics must include 50% women artists . Then maybe other things can be written about.
wayne
April 13, 2018 @ 11:14 am
By the way, Gretchen Peters’ “Arguing With Ghosts” is worth a listen.
Janice Brooks
April 13, 2018 @ 11:14 am
Margo Price is returning to Roots Rhythm and Barbecue in Columbia Mo in September.
Sam
April 13, 2018 @ 11:36 am
Speeeaaakinnggggg of women in country music…
Take a gander at Ashley Monroe’s full album on NPR: https://www.npr.org/2018/04/12/601100251/first-listen-ashley-monroe-sparrow
It’s pretty great in my opinion <3
RollieB
April 13, 2018 @ 11:52 am
Interesting post, Trig. Also, you are the King of paragraph-length, run-on sentences. Congratulations!
James Ewell Brown
April 13, 2018 @ 11:53 am
Am I in before the whisper network and people that proclaim to hold sway?
If so, I can +1 Sam, Sparrow is pretty nice…
And then add that Kasey’s cover of “Roy Rogers” on the Restoration project was repulsive.
Keep up the good fight, Trigger, but this particular row, not mine to hoe.
NickW19@gmail.com
April 13, 2018 @ 12:43 pm
Kacey’s cover of Roy Rogers was dreadful. Fact.
Anon.
April 13, 2018 @ 12:10 pm
From an artists perspective, when you’re one of the few women actually being booked by a festival and being tagged by both the festival to promote it and the people trolling the festival about booking more women you just don’t know what to do. It puts us in a really really hard spot. Even though the pay is total crap and we know we deserve what we’ve spent years working for (just the rate I’ve earned not a headlining rate as Im nowhere near that) some of us are happy to be included. The fight is appreciated but the artist gets stuck in the middle and none of us want to be misrepresented. We all just want a fair shot.
Trigger
April 13, 2018 @ 12:59 pm
This is a very good point, and I’ve encountered numerous instances where the women who do play these festivals are being pressured to either attack the festival, or drop out, which only exacerbates the gender disparity, just like turning down a booking because a festival is a “sausagefest” and then turning around and calling that same festival a suasagefest on Twitter.
When you’re booked at any festival, especially an independent festival, it is imperative that you become part of the promotional apparatus to drive fans to the event. If you turn out fans, then this looks good on you, proves you can draw, and helps increase your value as a live act. All promoters pay attention to crowd size, and now with apps, can see who attends whos sets. But if you’re attacking the fest, don’t turn out any fans, or even discourage people from attending, let alone don’t promote the fest, your value in the live space goes down, and once again, the festival is discouraged from booking female acts. If a festival fill slots with performers who don’t promote the fest, those slots next time will go to people who will. And if it’s over the women issue, it will be with more men.
Twitter trolls are acting like these independent promoters are Wal-Mart or Donald Trump, with deep pockets that need top come off of their cash for women, when your average independent festival LOSES money each year, is being run by someone who has a full time job, are sometimes not-for-profit so they don’t lose as much money otherwise, and are working on razor thin margins in the shadow of LiveNation and AEG who want nothing more than to squash them.
Bear
April 14, 2018 @ 7:18 pm
Ironically it will continue to be a sausage fest as long as women artists refuse to play these festivals. HSB in SF has a good female turnout. I don’t know if it was always that way. But is draws more than just the bros because of it, I believe.
But until women start to show it will be a sausage fest in both performers and audience demographics. They are basically digging their own grave as I see it.
GrantH
April 13, 2018 @ 12:13 pm
I mean, I’d rather have female artists remain in the minority if that insures great music quality than have the entire country genre become overrun with half-assed girly bro-country equivalents “because equality.” Also, I was never much of a Kacey hater before, but the constant music media brown-nosing of her over this new album is coming off as seriously disingenuous on their end.
North Woods Country
April 13, 2018 @ 1:22 pm
If radio quit searching for the female equivalent of bro country or metro-bro, this wouldn’t be an issue. Because there hasn’t been enough of a precedent in country music of women making shitty music, so nobody likes it and their careers never take off. And then so often the second single from a female artist kills their trajectory and they disappear. Clair Dunn comes to mind. And so will Carly Pearce 2-3 years from now after the unequivocally awful “Hide the Wine” barely cracks the top 20.
Gina
April 13, 2018 @ 1:43 pm
As a woman who promotes female artists l completely agree. This grandstanding only makes matters worse, and not just in music, BTW. It also seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon that people are actually counting female acts on lineups. It should always be about the quality of the music and again some of this is about the choices we women make.
DJ
April 13, 2018 @ 1:57 pm
This has gotten really old.
Markets decide, and define, the success- if the purchasers of a product don’t like it they won’t buy it. If the attendees don’t go because they don’t have women the problem is solved. If attendees still attend the problem? is ‘shown’….it’s a man’s world. Like it or not. Personally I like some female artists but the ones I’ve seen featured here that I like are few and far between. Matter of fact, I’d have to think long and hard to find one who stands out over the other, although I do like Morgane Stapleton because her expressions while harmonizing with her husband manifests itself in her singing, and Courtney ? I’ve heard so few times I can’t even remember her name. I’ve not seen ONE thing about Crystal Bowersox and she’s more country than any of what I’ve seen featured here, and from what I can ascertain is doing pretty good- make good music you will be recognized. Be happy with what you have don’t complain about what you don’t have- happiness comes from within- if an external source is required it has to be remembered that source is fickle- if not you will be highly disappointed, probably suffer emotionally and pay dearly.
All the crying or advocacy in the world won’t change a damn thing- but, it will allow, if not force, you to become dependent on an external, fickle source.
And don’t even call me mysogynist. I love women. I don’t like whiners. Period. Trying to make somebody feel bad doesn’t do you, or anyone else, any favors- and, in the long run, you will pay- not me.
Putting out another’s light does not make your’s shine brighter- that includes promoters lights.
James O
April 13, 2018 @ 2:08 pm
Does anyone know any good newer bluegrass bands? Thanks
Trigger
April 13, 2018 @ 2:21 pm
Wood & Wire just released a new album today.
Robert's Country Blog
April 13, 2018 @ 2:40 pm
I’m enjoying that one. Also, some of the bluegrass women who released albums in 2018 that I have on my playlist are The Price Sisters, Ida Clare, and Kristy Cox.
Gina
April 13, 2018 @ 8:34 pm
They are really good.
Digs
April 13, 2018 @ 5:25 pm
Horeshoes and handgrenades “The Ode”
Messer
April 14, 2018 @ 10:24 am
The Local Honeys are decent
Kevin Smith
April 13, 2018 @ 3:10 pm
From a serious music fans perspective, I like good music, great songs, great instrumentalists, great bands, great vocalists etc. I really don’t care whether said music is male or female. Certain femaIe artists grab my ear, some dont. Same for males. I don’t go to a music fest to be politically correct. I go to hear good music. But putting in a sub par artist to fill gender requirements is a waste of time. It’s about the music and the art of the song to me. Mr. Promoter man, bring us good music. And you gals who play great music, consider it an honor that we wanna hear you share your art with us. We will support you.
RWP
April 13, 2018 @ 3:26 pm
I been somewhat surprised that there hasn’t been a blog on here about Sunny Sweeney recently calling out a promoter in Texas on twitter for being misogynist,even though he proved he wasn’t,and made her look like a complete ass in the process. It goes with what you’re saying here.
Trigger
April 13, 2018 @ 4:52 pm
I didn’t want to go into any specific instance of trolling here because I don’t want to call out anyone specifically, I want to try and help raise awareness generally and hopefully ease down tensions as opposed to heighten them. That said, one of the things I remember the local promoter Michael Berry expressed when some Twitter troll attacked him saying, “How does it feel talking down a woman?” He responded something to the effect of “It feels terrible. We all lose in these instances.” And he’s totally right. That’s why I think ratcheting down the anger and trying to breed understanding is so important here. But unfortunately, that’s not what some of these trolls want. They don’t even want integration of festivals. They want to destroy these festivals, they want to ruin the promoter’s lives, they want the promoters to lose their day jobs, when all they are is music fans trying to do what they can to support music on the local level. They want artists yelling at promoters, and vice versa. They want chaos and a bloodbath because for some this isn’t about women representation at festivals at all, it’s about finding a vehicle for unresolved anger. Many of the trolls aren’t even country music fans.
Bear
April 14, 2018 @ 7:16 pm
I hate to say it but that is the left eating itself alive. The just want to do what the feel has been done to them. It boils down to nothing more than revenge it seems to me. And Revenge beyond music but just to the who all males are evil trope that has been building these past few years. Logic plays no part in it for most people near as I can tell.
Messer
April 13, 2018 @ 4:09 pm
Maybe people just prefer male singers and performers. I do. Most women these days are just talking about being empowered or some bullshit and if you speak out against a woman’s music or looks or anything you are labeled as a sexist or something. Leave politics out of it and play good music that people want to hear. Who cares if there’s a woman there or not, as long as the music is good
James O
April 13, 2018 @ 5:20 pm
Hail yeah that’s right
Seventh Son
April 14, 2018 @ 7:11 am
“Most women these days” – The ignorance is strong with this one
FunctionallyIlliterate
April 13, 2018 @ 4:33 pm
Trigger, fighting the patriarchy since 2013.
Trigger
April 13, 2018 @ 4:40 pm
You know, I think there’s a lot of folks looking at the headline and sniffing through the article briefly and deciding they know what’s going on here. I really think that before you decide what’s going on here, you really should read it.
wayne
April 13, 2018 @ 5:41 pm
I read it and my comments stand. Also I listened to Gretchen Peters’ “Arguing With Ghosts” again and it is going from good to really good.
JB-Chicago
April 13, 2018 @ 5:51 pm
Our Windy City Smokeout has 3 women out of 18 artists with Ashley McBryde being the highest female on the bill being the 4th out of 6 on the second day. Last year 4 out of 33 with Brandy Clark and Sunny Sweeney playing the day I was there.
Windy City Lake Shake has 3 out of 11 all of which are opening and are earliest on the bill. Miranda headlined a day last year with only 1 other woman and Little Big Town on the entire 3 day bill.
What we don’t know about any of these festivals is like what was said in the article who was offered and turned it down or was never even told about it by their agents.
KGD
April 13, 2018 @ 6:53 pm
My ONLY complaint about Mile 0 was the lack of female artists on the main stage. There were 2 and I believe they both were the first act on their particular day.
Kent
April 14, 2018 @ 6:20 am
I have question Trigger are you talking about festivals in general or country music festivals in particular? I’m asking because I wonder if this is a bigger problem for country festivals compared to festivals that includes many different genre.
I mean FAK are in US now to play the Coachella festival. And they have flown from Europe ONLY to take part in that festival plus one small side show at The Observatory Santa Ana California. And then they are flying back to Europe to play a big Festival in UK…And then back to US again for the Bonnaroo festival and some side shows and then back to Europe again…
And here is another article that may interest you:
“Coachella is being sued for banning artists from playing other festivals around California for five months.” http://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-43726696
Trigger
April 14, 2018 @ 8:01 am
The gender parity issue at festivals ranges across all genres, and the previous article I wrote on this subject that I linked to goes more in-depth beyond country. I focused on country here because this is where I have specifically witnesses the instances of aggressive trolling which is directly resulting in LESS women being booked at the very festivals they’re targeting.
Fuzzy TwoShirts
April 14, 2018 @ 7:35 am
It sounds like a lot of these women are shooting themselves in the foot, like Margo Price was named.
Ciara
April 14, 2018 @ 10:46 am
If women artist are refusing to perform at the festivals, the festivals themselves should look at the environment that they are creating and seeing if it’s sexist or understanding where the hesitations are
And that’s sincerely Ciara.
Trigger
April 14, 2018 @ 4:30 pm
That’s a good point. Some festivals do not offer environments that not only women performers, but women patrons do not feel comfortable in. That said, if this is the issue performers or patrons are taking, then it should be broached in that manner as opposed to harping on percentages of women performers as if is the promoter is excluding women instead of women excluding themselves from performing. This is another reason these are complex issues that need to be dealt with from multiple angles in the industry, and deep dialog.
Ciara
April 15, 2018 @ 4:48 pm
Part of making an uncomfortable environment is the low percentages of female performers. If you’re the only woman at the table it’s not going to be enticing to want to be there. Festivals organizers have to put in more then bare minimum in. Take for example the one local promoter who said after facing valid criticism “Maybe next year we won’t book any women at all.”. It just kind of shows where their inherent bias lies. If they were truly concern a response would be we are aware of the issue and are taking these steps to do better.
It’s not dissimilar to when radio programmers got grilled for passing on Miranda’s Tin Man when the song achieved great success in sales by saying we needed something more upbeat after passing on the radio friendly “We Should Be Friends”.
CountryKnight
May 16, 2023 @ 9:07 am
It is always the men’s fault. /s
Bear
April 14, 2018 @ 7:26 pm
Funny enough t his reminds me of Lilth Fair, which was all females acts or female fronted acts. It was poo-pooed from the get go because “nobody wanted to see or listen to women.” Lo and behold LOTS of women wanted to see and hear women. But it was mostly women in the audience.
So if you don’t have female performers you won’t get females in the seats maybe (unless they are their for the mom jeans and ass shaking and what’s his name falling off stage). But if y ou don’t get females in seats of buying tickets women are less likely to perform. Unless they are like Gretchen Wilson or somebody whose image is a bit more male friendly (i.e. rowdy, whiskey drinking, cursing).
As a side note this lack of female presence is also true on music anthologies. I’ve been studying this for some time but not surprisingly country music anthologies far much better than say, hip-hop, blues, jazz classic rock when is comes to women represented. I mean by leaps and bounds! So there is STRONG evidence people like hearing female voices in country.