Isle of Wight festival announces all-male headliners for 2024

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The lineup for Isle of Wight Festival 2024 has received criticism for excluding female artists while featuring The Prodigy, Pet Shop Boys, and Green Day as headliners.

The upcoming music festival is scheduled to happen next summer, specifically from June 20th to June 23rd. The list of performers for the event will be disclosed on Thursday, November 2nd.

Out of the 16 musical performers set to take the main stage, only three are women. These include Swedish pop sensation Zara Larsson and soulful singer Beverley Knight as solo acts. Meanwhile, rock band Simple Minds have featured backing vocalist Sarah Brown and drummer Cherisse Osei as part of their line-up since 2017. However, none of the aforementioned performers are slated to take on the coveted headline spot.

The Isle of Wight Festival has been contacted by The Independent for a response.

Instead of the previously scheduled headliners, The Prodigy, who are now a duo after the passing of Keith Flint last year, will grace the stage on Friday, 21 June. Pet Shop Boys will be the main act on Saturday, 22 June, with their highly anticipated Dreamworld: The Greatest Hits Live performance. American rock band Green Day will close out the festival on Sunday, 23 June with their only UK festival appearance.

The primary stage will feature performances by several other musicians including The Streets, McFly, Simple Minds, Keane, Suede, Dagny, and The Darkness. Additional performances will take place at the Big Top from artists such as Suede, Jo Whiley's 90s Anthems, Scouting for Girls, Dagny, The Mary Wallopers, Toyah and Robert, and the Rick Parfitt Jnr Band. There may be more acts to come, so stay tuned!

Even though the music industry boasts of being more varied and accepting in recent times, festivals in the UK are still heavily populated by male performers.

In the upcoming year, the Pet Shop Boys have been chosen to be the main performers at the Isle of Wight Festival.

According to a YouGov poll conducted in 2022, merely one-tenth of the chief performers at major music festivals in the United Kingdom were female. Out of 200 primary acts, a mere 26 were women. One participant identified as nonbinary, 24 had both male and female members, and the remaining 149 were either individual male performers or entirely male bands.

The Glastonbury Festival of last year had almost half of the performers being females, yet it received a lot of negative feedback for having all-male headliners, such as Guns N' Roses, Arctic Monkeys and Elton John. Some people were disappointed that Lizzo and Lana Del Rey, who also performed at the festival, were not given an opportunity to headline the event.

According to Emily Eavis, one of the organizers, Guns N' Roses stepped in to replace a female singer, who many believed to be Taylor Swift, after she altered her tour schedule. Eavis acknowledged that it is difficult to secure prominent female performers due to a "pipeline" issue.

The root of this issue can be traced back to the record companies and radio. No matter how loudly I express my concern, it's crucial to unite everyone on the matter," she disclosed. In 2022, a report examining gender and racial inequality in UK radio revealed that solo male artists from the UK dominated the top 100 charts more than three times as frequently as female solo artists and accounted for 80% of all top 100 singles.

During the past few months, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of female artists appearing on the UK music charts. This can be attributed to popular songs released by a range of talented musicians, including Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Peggy Gou, Kenya Grace and Mitski. The soundtrack for the popular Barbie franchise also played a role in the rise of female artists, as Dua Lipa, Billie Eilish, Charli XCX, Nicki Minaj, and Spice all managed to reach the Top 10 with tracks from the Barbie album.