Kate Nash has hit out at "straight white male" festival organisers for not enlisting enough women to play at big music events.

Kate Nash

Kate Nash

The 'Foundations' hitmaker claims guys are being "naive" when it comes to hiring talent for such spectacles because they are "just seeing men" when they choose who performs at their festivals, and she has called for "women of colour" and "gay people" to be given such jobs.

She said: "It's got to be the people booking the festivals - I don't know this as fact, but I would imagine it's predominantly male bookers, and maybe it's a case of naivety, because they may think they're trying to put on an act that they want or relate to, and they're just seeing men.

"And I think that's why we need diversity in all areas of power. There's a lot of talk at the moment of having diversity in film critics.

"We need women of colour, we need gay people, we need other people that aren't straight white men in these roles."

The 30-year-old singer is hoping more "female, diverse women" will be put in charge of hiring music festival talent to ensure line-ups are "more equal".

She added to Digital Spy: "If you've got more female, diverse women in these positions, then they're going to be booking more diverse women and the line-up is going to become more equal.

"Whereas if you continue to just have one type of person in charge of everything, I think they're going to stay the same."

Earlier this year, Lily Allen hit out at Wireless Festival bosses for only featuring three solo female musicians, Mabel, Cardi B and Lisa Mercedez, on the spectacle's initial line-up poster.

She retweeted an edited image of the festival's poster with all the male artists set to perform removed, leaving only the names of the trio.

She captioned the post: "The struggle is real."

Lily added: "That wireless have booked 3 women over 3 days of festival.

"And people wonder why women in Music aren't coming forward with their #metoo experiences. Money is power. (sic)"

A few hours later, she wrote: "It does state that more acts are to be announced, so hopefully more female acts will be added."


Tagged in