Spilt Milk Festival ACT

OUTRAGE: The Spilt Milk Fest Lineup Has Only One Female Artist Performing, But Are We Surprised?

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The Spilt Milk Festival dropped its official debut lineup yesterday with an unfortunate twist, only 1 female artist is set to perform. But are we surprised?

The ACT festival says it will be “bringing together some of Australia’s best things”, but is including only a single female artist in the mix to perform at Commonwealth Park, Canberra.

Sydney based singer songwriter Vera Blue, will be sharing her talent with the rest of the male-dominated group at Spilt Milk on the 3 December, with the lineup featuring the works of Flume, Sticky Fingers, Hermitude, Allday, Client Liaison, Peking Duk, Violent Soho, Paces and more to be announced in the next coming weeks.

Host of Triple J’s House Party Kristy Lee Peters took to Twitter to share her shock over the lineup which made her feel “uninspired to try be a musician in bro-town”.

Aussie talent Nina Las Vegas also backed KLP in the misfortune of the Spilt Milk lineup.

Despite the obvious gender-gap within the lineup, this has mostly gone undetected in reporting on the upcoming festival.

The Aussie DJ known as KLP to Triple J listeners says the number of female artists performing at festivals around the nation is disappointing.

“It’s such an exciting time for females in music, especially here in Australia, so when the people with the booking power fail to take that opportunity to showcase some deserving women on their line-ups, it’s a real shame.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen female artists being ignored in the music industry. The recognition of women’s talent in the Australian media has left Triple J in heat multiple times, after being blamed for not fairly representing female acts in their annual Hottest 100.

This year’s countdown was no different, with only two female artists featured in the top 10 as vocalists for male artists. In total the list only 37 out of 100 songs featured female vocalists.

Australia’s biggest music awards The ARIAs, were also pointed out for its disproportioned votes: with 1 in 3 nominations going to solo female artists or artists with at least one woman. So what is Triple J and the Australian music industry going to do about the amount of coverage of female talent?

Triple J breakfast host Matt Okine addressed the issue at this year’s ARIAs, which left female talents in awe of his stand up towards inequality within the industry. KLP says we need more people like minded to realise the amount of sexism in Australia’s music industry.

“We need more Matt Okine’s standing up and talking about it. I urge anyone (both male and female) to speak up and help get it to a place where we don’t have to talk about it anymore because the inequality no longer exists.”

The team at Hack conducted a survey over a 7-day period which showed that only 39 percent of Triple J’s airplay was dedicated to woman –  with 61 percent going to male artists.

Via Triple J Hack

Via Triple J Hack

The range of Australian female talents showcasing their talents daily is incredible: just some include Courtney Barnett, Ngaiire, Montaigne, Elizabeth Rose, Tkay Maidza and George Maple.

The question to why these talents are in some way ignored is a question that won’t seem to be answered.

KLP says the best way to beat the gender equality is a simple task.  “The more we celebrate and represent women in music through whatever platforms available, the more younger girls will see that and think ‘hey I can do that too’. We need to encourage it for it to grow.”

Creating awareness to the topic of women in music is something that has been ushered for years. But with the ever changing world we live in, the mission of tackling the imbalance of the Australian music scene will remain a fight that will live on till it is solved.

WATCH: Spilt Milk Music Festival Lineup