female:pressure has released its FACTS 2022 survey, looking at the gender balance of electronic music festival lineups. First published in 2013, this year marks the fifth edition of the study, which was updated in 2015, 2017 and 2020. In order to collect the results, members of female:pressure and festival organizers looked at 159 editions of 109 unique festivals that took place between 2020 and 2021.
According to this year’s results, the proportion of women artists has risen from 9.2 percent in 2012 to 26.9 percent in the newest reporting period (2020 to 2021). 1.3 percent of the artists surveyed were non-binary and 9.1 percent were mixed (acts made up of more than one gender). 59.1 percent were male.
FACTS 2022 confirmed that larger festivals generally have a more imbalanced gender distribution, with lower numbers of women and non-binary artists. The thorough survey also includes a section on diversity. In 2020, female:pressure took steps to work out the most effective ways to categorize and quantify race within or alongside the FACTS study. This included consulting artists of colour from within the female:pressure network. No data or results have been published so far.
This bar graph shows how the gender distribution in FACTS-analyzed festivals has changed between 2012 and 2021. Read full survey here.
Additional diversity considerations include: billing hierarchy (do women or non-binary artists feature in less-prominent slots); women and non-binary artists in leadership roles; ageism; and ableism. The call-to-action section of FACTS shares suggestions for how festival organizers, artists, journalists, policy advocacy groups, politicians and festival attendees can help promote and create positive change.
