Why do fewer female acts headline music festivals in India?

Festival programmers, journalists, and artist managers weigh in on how the narrative can be changed

When the dust settles on a music festival, there are a few takeaways for enthusiastic revellers: the euphoria of catching their favourite acts live, perpetuating the tradition of surviving on beer and a bevy of overpriced bites, jostling for space to catch a DJ set and, of course, the annual rite of passage of teenagers celebrating exam results fuelled by cheap booze. While all of these may make you pine for the next big music festival, a less positive occurrence conveniently swept under the shoe-stained carpet is the annual furore around line-ups’ lack of non-male artists.

Where are the female headliners?

Female musicians and independent artists are still fighting to be taken seriously by festival organisers, programmers and bookers, who conveniently side-step them in favour of the boys. When The Established tried asking a few of these custodians (mostly men) why this disparity exists, they either declined to comment, directed us to their publicists to avoid being misquoted or offered wobbly defences, often peddling the myth that there aren’t enough talented non-male musicians to book. But, it’s not just festivals that should be held accountable. In 2018, Grammys boss Neil Portnow said women needed to “step-up” to win major awards. 

There's little data currently on the gender disparity at music festivals, but journalist Amit Gurbaxani, who has been at the forefront of changing this narrative in India, is quick to point out that "the number of female or female-fronted acts is frequently in the single digits and remains to be so for a number of brand-new festivals. But that is slowly changing, with legacy festivals like Bacardi NH7 Weekender and Magnetic Fields trying to ensure that at least a third of their line-ups comprises female artists. But yes, as far as headliners go, there's almost no female representation.”

In an article by Gurbaxani in 2018, he stated that the editions of Bacardi NH7 Weekender and Vh1 Supersonic had eight female performers out of 50 and only nine female performers out of over 75 performers, respectively. In another piece by Gurbaxani for Skillbox in February this year, he listed the ten most programmed live independent music acts of the 2022-23 festival season in India, based on the number of festivals these acts had been a part of, and, not surprisingly, it comprises only male acts and bands, with Pune-based Easy Wanderlings being the only exception (Pratika Gopinath is the band's lead female vocalist.)

Correcting the imbalance

Gender disparity isn't novel to the Indian music industry alone. Despite female headliners ruling the roost, there's been a clamour for more female headliners by festival-goers in the United Kingdom and the United States. That's where Keychange comes in. In 2017, the Keychange Pledge was launched as a call to action to challenge this imbalance, encouraging music festivals and conferences to publicly commit to programming 50 per cent of women artists and professionals in their line-ups and panels by 2022. According to updated numbers (as of February 2023), over 600 music festivals and organisations have now taken Keychange’s pledge to be more inclusive for women and gender-expansive minorities.

Desiree Saldanha, who's been part of the programming team for Vh1 Supersonic for six months and also moonlights as a DJ, under the moniker 'Suggahunny', has made it her mission to enlist more female independent acts onto Supersonic's roster. "When Viacom 18 hired me, they knew I came with the agenda to better the gender disparity in music festivals, which includes adding more female acts to the line-up and maybe positioning one or two of these acts as a headliner. It's a slow process but one that I am committed to," she says. 

Saldanha also informs us that the systemic problem of underrepresenting women stems from the fact that India's independent music scene is dominated by artist agencies that are also male-dominated. "It's almost like a boys' club, so where do the women go?" says Saldanha, adding: "Personally, for me to be able to DJ and work in music for such a long period of my life is a massive privilege. A lot of women in the country don't have that opportunity. If they were to say that they want to become musicians or work in nightclubs, most Indian families would oppose their decision, with some even being shamed for taking up a gig in the events or music space. So I think you need to come from a certain amount of privilege to be able to even start performing as a woman."

“When curating a festival line-up, most programmers consider an act's ability to pull in a crowd based on streaming numbers, social media numbers and past performances. And currently, almost all the popular acts in the country are male-fronted bands or and solo male artists. If you take a step back and consider the number of albums and EPs released by Indian independent artists in 2022, the number of releases by female or mixed-gender acts is just 18 per cent. So there’s a smaller pool for festival programmers to choose from, in the first place. That said, there’s a growing number of female artists with a substantial following and it’s only a matter of time, say two to three years, before we see at least some female headliners,” says Gurbaxani. 

Saldanha believes FEMWAV (FKA Fembot5), an ‘empowerment network’ for female and queer talent from India, is pushing the agenda of creating empowerment models and increasing the representation of women’s music in the country 

Curating a line-up

Jashoda Madhavji, founder of Dream N Hustle Media—a boutique venture specialising in brand building, publicity, marketing, and celebrity management, has had the privilege of onboarding stellar female acts like Anoushka Shankar, Raja Kumari (in the past) and Ambika Nayak, who goes by the stage name Kayan.a. "Female musicians are far less likely to be picked up by an artist and repertoire manager, far less likely to be invested in, far less likely to get a manager or an agent, and all of these things mean you’re less likely to be chosen to play on festival stages. The conversations around gender balance and equality in the music industry have been ongoing with no concerted accomplishments. There is a feeling among many in the music business and live sector that the problem of poor gender representation is industry-wide and generic, and no one person wants to take on that risk of shaking up the system,” says Madhavji.

While year after year, gender equality is discussed at music panels and forums, the key stakeholders from the industry, says Madhavji, aren’t pledging or embracing this advocacy for inclusion in a more formal structured manner to make this a reality. “Truth be told, audiences who attend festivals aren’t passive and want to be entertained with novelty. I think it's about promoters taking on a more innovative experimental approach and challenging their usual status quo." 

Many factors are at play regarding slotting acts and deciding who gets top billing, says Madhavji. "It all depends on the availability of an artist or if there’s an exclusive contractual deal signed with a specific promoter or if there’s promotional content that an artist is touring in support of (an album in most cases). With regard to slotting a line-up, fan engagement across demographics is important. A hot favourite generally gets slotted as the headlining act. Most promoters look to recover production and other miscellaneous costs and must pack in at least 5,000 people per city. In some cases, promoter familiarity and proximity to artist management agencies are important in the final consideration," she says.

Making headliners doesn’t start and end with promoting an act directly to the top spot, though. It can be a process that happens gradually over the years, as artists are given new chances with higher and higher up bills. However, most of the people we spoke to for this story agree that male artists who’ve broken onto the scene with just 2-3 years of experience and enlist the help of paid campaigns orchestrated by their management to secure prominent slots at music festivals as opposed to other female artists who’ve been around for years and enjoy a certain amount of brand lineage.

Put on a show

If you've ever witnessed New Delhi-based artist Kavya Trehan perform live, you will agree that her brand of music is part theatricality and part soaring vocals. One of the best acts we have in the country now, Trehan, believes she's inherently egalitarian but concurs that women find it harder to find places of prominence at music festivals. Having performed at Lollapalooza India in January this year, she says, "I haven't had as many opportunities as maybe the male artists have had." Trehan credits much of her  acceleration in the last year  or so  to her manager, Aneesha Kotwani, who also runs a music and culture agency in Mumbai called WAVLNGTH. "If more women support women, there's a completely different power-packed influence and execution," says Trehan, adding: "Honestly, it's such a mystery [why more women don't headline music festivals] because sometimes from an outsider's perspective, it feels like friends help friends. And there are already so many  subcultures of groups of artists, management agents, cities that they'd rather keep promoting, and  rostering their friends versus promoting new talent." Trehan counts Kiss Nuka and Sandunes as the two acts she particularly enjoys watching live because of the performance quality they bring to the stage. “And then there’s Raja Kumari and Monica Dogra, who are super-popular and have headlined festivals both nationally and internationally,” she says. 

Kotwani believes female musicians tend to second-guess themselves, which can be attributed to their lack of opportunities. "As soon as Kavya and I started working together, I pushed for her in all the ways I could to build visibility. She has performed in many music festivals, but then there are gigs we've let go of because of her rate, which I will not compromise on. If we do decide to do a gig where the budget is less than what she should earn, there has  to be a value-add or we politely decline," she says, "It's important that we don't sell female musicians short, financially," she says. 

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