Spilt Milk Festival Responds To Concerns Over Lack Of Female Artists On Its Lineup

Canberra’s new music festival Spilt Milk has responded to punters’ concerns after it named only one female artist on its inaugural lineup last week.

Spilt Milk’s first-ever lineup announcement named the likes of Flume, Sticky Fingers, Violent Soho and Hermitude on the bill, while its sole female act — Sydney’s Vera Blue — was added to the list in the following days, leading to comments like this one on the festival’s Facebook event page…

In a statement to Music Feeds, Spilt Milk festival organisers Kicks Entertainment say the reactions of punters to the event’s initial lineup announcement have been heard, and they accept that the lineup has so far missed the mark. Organisers say they are preparing to add more female acts to the festival’s roster very soon.

“Opportunities for female artists in the music industry ARE less than those for men. We have an opportunity to do something and that is what we are doing with our second round announcement this week,” organisers say.

The statement continues:

“Expect to see announced more female artists that we are really excited to have as part of Spilt Milk; some of whom we had booked prior to our first announcement, some of whom we were considering booking and now have, and some of whom we discovered and booked as a result of the discussion around this issue.

“Gender inequality exists throughout society and we all have an obligation to help foster change, an opportunity we missed with our initial announcement. Our focus was assembling a line up that represented our musical vision for Spilt Milk, and that did include a much larger number of female artists who were unfortunately unavailable or unable to confirm by the deadline for the first announcement.

“That said, we needed to give more deserved consideration to the under-representation of female artists on the line up, something we have made a conscious effort to improve as you will see in our second announcement this week.

“Assembling exciting line ups for events of this nature is incredibly complex, with many different, and often competing, contributing factors. With our growing understanding of this issue, and recognising that every small step matters, we are committed to delivering more opportunities for female artists to help move the industry in the right direction.”

Facebook posts like the one above have also received some distasteful comments of their own over the last week, and Spilt Milk organisers have called out Facebook users responsible for such posts by stating they should stay away from the festival.

“To the people using hateful, bigoted, sexist and misogynistic comments online, you have no place at our event,” organisers say.

“If you can’t respect that this is a complex issue that must be discussed with respect to all opinions, then you should re consider attending Spilt Milk. Your negative attitude has absolutely no place at our event and your money might be better spent on education.”

Spilt Milk 2016 is set to take place at Canberra’s Commonwealth Park on Saturday, 3rd December. Catch the event’s current lineup below, and stay tuned to Music Feeds for the next major lineup announcement later this week.

Spilt Milk 2016 Lineup

Flume

Sticky Fingers

Violent Soho

Hermitude

Peking Duk

Allday

Client Liaison

Cosmo’s Midnight

DMA’s

Gang of Youths

Hot Dub Time Machine

L D R U

Paces

Slumberjack

Vince Staples

Vera Blue