Equality activists are pressuring British music festivals to end their reliance on bands dominated by white males.
Diversity experts ordered organizers to “open their minds” and book more female and ethnic minority acts at some fo the country’s biggest festivals including Reading, Leeds, Download, V Fest and Glastonbury.
Festival bosses typically respond by observing that their job is to sell tickets rather than meet diversity quotas, so they book their acts accordingly.
However, that hasn’t stopped the social justice warriors from interfering.
The events attract hundreds of thousands of attendees, each of whom spend about £200 ($250) per ticket for a weekend of music and entertainment.
But despite the events’ evident financial success, they are continually criticized for their choice of artists – typically world-famous rock bands consisting of four or five white male musicians.
Research compiled by the UK’s Press Association news agency said that of 321 acts booked for UK festivals, only 47 have a female member and 89 have a non-white member.
This year’s biggest white male acts are Radiohead and the Foo Fighters (Glastonbury), Eminem and Muse (Reading and Leeds), Aerosmith (pictured above) and Slayer (Download).
V Fest – more of a pop than a rock festival – ticks more boxes this year by having Katy Perry and Jay Z as its top acts of the weekend.
In the vanguard of critics of the festivals was Keith Harris, the chair of UK Music’s Diversity Taskforce. He said: “People have got to open their minds.
“They (female/non-white acts) clearly have fans out there and if you put them on the bill they will clearly bring an audience and in some cases they will bring a new audience, because a lot of the male headliners have been round eight or nine times.”
Some festivals swore to take the criticism into account. Bestival, a smaller event with a hippy reputation, said it has a “responsibility to help rebalance the male dominance of festival line-ups”.
As such, it is introducing gender quotas for its DJ stage next year, and will insist half of artists are female.
Other, more established festivals, have been less keen on such advice in the past.
When one of the organizers of Reading and Leeds Festival was asked in 2015 why they kept booking so many men, he cited economics.
Speaking to the Guardian, he said: “Why do you think we book the same male acts again and again? Because they sell tickets.
“Trust me, if there was a female headline act in the rock genre that sold the same amount of tickets as any one of the headline acts this year, I’d book them.”
#1: Justified To: All (#0)
Really do we go to Zimbabwe and demand they diversify by subsidizing white people to come and live there? The absurdity of SJW and progressives knows no bound.
Justified posted on 2017-06-19 09:03:09 Reply Private Reply
#2: Stoner To: Justified (#0)
Otherwise, they should STFU !!!
Stoner posted on 2017-06-19 10:45:43 Reply Private Reply
#3: Tooconservative To: Justified (#0)
Exactly so. These organizers are purely in it for the money, not for white rock-n-roll supremacy. It's daft to suggest that they are anything more than money-grubbing businessmen.
If there was demand, they'd book anything they could make money off of. Because they're capitalist pigs.
Tooconservative posted on 2017-06-19 11:05:54 Reply Private Reply
#4: Deckard To: Stoner, Justified (#2)
They don't have the smarts to do that.
You heard/read about what happened with the Fyre Festival, right?
Fyre Festival canceled after guests allege "scam"
The Fyre Festival in the Bahamas, billed as a "luxury" event featuring big music acts and celebrity chefs, is now canceled after a chaotic false start, stranding angry visitors who shelled out thousands of dollars to attend.
"Due to unforeseen and extenuating circumstances, Fyre Festival has been fully postponed," the festival tweeted on Friday. "After assessing the situation this morning and looking at best options for our guests, we cannot move forward as we hoped we could. At this time, we are working tirelessly to get flights scheduled and get all travelers home safely."
The statement was of little solace to those who were already on the island. After promises of gourmet meals from celebrity chefs, festival-goes who arrived on Thursday were treated to sandwich bread, salad and slices of cheese, one attendee claimed on Twitter.
Visitors at the music event called it a fraud. On its website, the Fyre Festival described itself a "cultural moment created from a blend of music, art, and food," and an ad for the event said it featured "the best in food, art, music and adventure." Ja Rule was one of the festival's co-creators and Blink-182, Tyga and Desiigner were supposed to perform.
Some patrons paid up to $200,000 to stay in private villas, attend the festival and enjoy high-end food and music from renowned artists, CBS Dallas reports.
The first wave of visitors arrived to an unfinished festival site on Thursday. Concertgoer Farah Bengozi told CBS Dallas that the promised "villas" turned out to be bare-bones tents, and there were no big-name musicians or celebrity chefs to be seen.
"The food they served was like a soup kitchen, and there wasn't enough of it," she said. "This was a scam for sure ... It could have been something, but they didn't put effort into it."
The dinner that
@fyrefestival promised us was catered by Steven Starr is literally bread, cheese, and salad with dressing.#fyrefestivalDeckard posted on 2017-06-19 11:10:32 Reply Private Reply
#5: Deckard To: Justified, TooConservative, Stoner, A K A Stone, sneakypete, *Music* (#0)
Just for fun:
Deckard posted on 2017-06-19 11:29:29 Reply Private Reply
#6: rlk To: Justified (#1)
That will titulate the sexually constipated. You got a problem with that?
rlk posted on 2017-06-19 11:37:48 Reply Private Reply
#7: Tooconservative To: Deckard, redleghunter, Liberator (#5)
Tooconservative posted on 2017-06-19 11:57:22 Reply Private Reply