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.
Even though electronic dance music was born from BIPOC and LGBTQI+ communities, the current incarnation of dance music in North America is overwhelmingly white and male. This lack of diversity in dance music is no more present than on festival lineups across the United States. With the pandemic shutting down the live music industry, some members of the dance music community wondered if promoters would take this time to discover new artists and emerge from the ashes with diverse, innovative lineup offerings. As you dust off your dance shoes, let’s see how diversity on 2021 music festivals is tracking. Will 2021 welcome a shift in the festival rotation from previous years?
