#BookMoreBIPOC: Tackling Tokenism and Discrimination Within Festival Lineups This “Homechella” Season

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If you haven’t done it yet, bury your fanny packs, facepaint and flower crowns (I think flower crowns already died with Tumblr but please correct me if I’m wrong) in a shallow grave and formally say RIP to festival season 2020. While in pre-corona times I would currently be spreading glitter through my hair without any idea how I’d wash it out later or trying to hunt down the only puke-free port-a-potty at a festival, I’m currently sitting in sweats in my kitchen researching “mask fashion inspo” (last week I dyed my back porch blue while tie-dying, which actually looks pretty sick if I’m being honest). Highs and lows man, highs and lows.

But, with COVID-19 keeping us at home and a national discourse surrounding the importance of black lives, the prevalence of police brutality and systemic racism, people are actually paying attention. I don’t need to reiterate that BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) discrimination, exploitation and tokenism is not a fringe issue, it is everyone’s issue, and that this discrimination is no more prevalent industry-wide than within the music industry. Which is in fact were the now-backfired #blackouttuesday originated.While the perils of corporate activism and performative allyship are a rant for another day (a rant I have assembled and ready to go, don’t worry), the now festival-less summer seems a lot less sunny than it used to, and brand-led campaigns—from such well-known companies as Spotify, Depop, and Reformation—for better representation seem like cheap lip service given the stakes.

Indeed, festival bills have already undergone increasing scrutiny in recent years, specifically following the birth of the @bookmorewomen Twitter and Instagram accounts by Abbey Carbonneau in March 2018. Receiving viral recognition for photoshopping upcoming festival bills by erasing the male participants and leaving only the female-identifying acts or groups on the bill, including the numerical percentages of female or non-binary musicians performing, the images became symbolic of the tokenism and discrimination that has plagued the music industry, and by extension the festival industry, for decades. In fact, at first glance, you’d be forgiven for believing that straight, cis, white men are the only people who actually know how to play the guitar. Like a genetic condition. Maybe they’re born with it, maybe its privilege.

Book More Women’s formula is simple, like a Bechdel test for the music industry. According to their website, “any band, group, or solo artist who is or features at least one woman or non-binary musician as a permanent member will remain on the poster. Official Facebook pages and press photos are used to determine who is and is not an official member of a group. Percentages posted on Twitter and Instagram are based on the total number of musical acts playing the festival and the total number of musical acts who meet the above criteria.” Although the bar seems pretty low, the results are telling.

For example, Glastonbury 2019 (they really do have great live videos from last year if you’re feeling nostalgic), did considerably well, with 48% of artists remaining on the bill, as well as 44% of the top fourth of the bill, the headliners of the festival.

Gov Ball 2020 was also doing well before it was cancelled, with 42% of artists remaining on the bill, up from 36% in 2019 and 28% in 2018, proof that these campaigns actually work.

Conversely, some festivals still haven’t caught on or have willfully ignored this disparity.For example, Born & Raised Music Festival exhibited a pitiful 8% (that’s three whole artists) for 2020. Marketed as a festival for “the outlaw in all of us,” I have to agree, because that festival lineup should be illegal.

While @bookmorewomen has taken off, spawning a website that includes a ‘Best of 2020’ tab featuring the most gender-diverse festival lineups of the year, ‘100% Festivals,’ which are “festivals, conferences, and shows with lineups that feature 100% women and non-binary musicians,” as well as incredible Spotify playlists and numerous resources featuring data, organizations within the music industry and media resources focused on reaching more-equal gender representation within music festivals, campaigns of this caliber do not exist to address BIPOC-related disparities in representation within these same spaces.

Don’t get me wrong, numerous festivals exist to specifically celebrate BIPOC and acknowledge contributions made within the arts, including music, like Essence Festival in New Orleans, the American Black Film Festival, The Afropunk Festival in Brooklyn and Atlanta, Ruido Fest in Chicago, The Ohio Valley Indigenous Music Festival in Springboro, Ohio, CuTie.BIPoc Festival in Berlin, etc. So far there has been no substantive discussion surrounding the immense contributions BIPOC musicians have made musically compared to their relatively sparse showing within headlining spots for popular music festivals. This discrepancy is particularly obvious when compared to their white counterparts, even those who have displayed appropriative behavior, specifically of black culture, in the past (including Ariana Grande at Coachella in 2018/2019 and Lollapalooza 2019, Post Malone at Reading and Leeds 2019, Miley Cyrus at Glastonbury and Primavera 2019, and Billie Eilish at Austin City Limits 2019).

Obviously, this is an issue that varies widely depending on the particular festival and booking agent in question, and popular festivals have made massive strides recently in making their lineups more representatively accurate overall. However the question remains as to where BIPOC artists find themselves located on a festival bill if they’re included at all, and, as the New Yorker reports, placement is nearly as important as inclusion altogether. Writing for the New Yorker on April 10, 2017, journalist John Seabrook, interviewing Coachella co-founder Paul Tollett, noted that when consulting Coachella’s 2017 lineup, “on the poster were the headliners for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: Radiohead, Beyoncé, and Kendrick Lamar, respectively, each of whom would receive between three and four million dollars for playing. Below them were seven lines of artist and band names. The first line noted the reunions (New Order), the critical darlings (Bon Iver, Father John Misty), and the biggest E.D.M. (electronic dance music) DJs; the font for the second, third, and fourth lines became progressively smaller, allowing more artists to be listed. The lowest three lines were all the same size. Some of those acts make less than ten thousand dollars.” While this may appear to be a logical apportioning of funds based upon an artist’s commercial success, even a generous amount considering the relatively-unknown musicians featured at the bottom of the bill, Billboard reported that in 2017, Coachella amassed over $114.6 million in gross revenue, the most revenue ever earned in a single year by a recurring festival franchise.

Not only is $114.6 million dollars an extortionate amount of money, but it places into perspective the negligible fee paid to the performers, particularly those lesser-known artists on the bottom half of the festival bill where the majority of BIPOC musicians are featured. When one considers the immense cost of touring and playing festivals, particularly as a smaller act, it is easy to see why many artists, particularly BIPOC artists, conclude playing the festival circuit to be too expensive, thereby bypassing festivals altogether. This results in festival lineups that remain overwhelmingly male and overwhelmingly white. This creates a cycle of tacit discrimination, whereby promoters and booking agents, in search of talent that they “know will sell tickets,” resort to booking conformist headlining acts and selling tickets to (and generating revenue from) the same population of concert-goers. Artists who do not fit this formula, meaning BIPOC, female and non-binary artists, feel written off prematurely unless they’re exceptionally wealthy pop-stars (see Beyoncé and Kendrick above). These festivals then lead to album sales which lead to promotional opportunities which lead to tour dates which lead to, you guessed it, festivals, and the cycle repeats.

However, there’s nothing like a global pandemic to bring everything to a stop, and as people now chill at home trying to figure out what to do with their weekends until September without the promise of day-drinking and drunk dancing while hoping that Mac DeMarco somehow notices you from like 100 rows back, the discussions occurring at this moment in-person and online all over the world have reverberations that can be felt across the socio-cultural spectrum, including the boardrooms and campgrounds where music festivals are conceived and executed every year. While I urge music fans to hold their favorite festivals and labels accountable, I also acknowledge that lasting change cannot be a one-sided endeavor. It is the responsibility of each individual fan to vote with their dollar, to actively support those organizations, festivals and artists that promote a more inclusive, diverse popular music landscape and to remain vigilant of those organizations and festivals who will use this current moment as a marketing tactic to sell more tickets and reinforce existing power structures within the music industry.

So, finally, I’d like to leave you with this: without touring and promotional possibilities, current BIPOC artists, particularly smaller artists, are struggling to support themselves financially and keep creating. Acknowledge the importance of these artists within your life. Stream their music, buy their albums, order a t-shirt or hoodie (maybe both since I’ve exclusively worn sweats for the past three months and I’m definitely not changing out of them now), support a Patreon, donate to a livestream, and above all, promise to continue doing this next year and the year after that, even when Tame Impala next headlines your favorite festival. Because when we all pledge to #BookMoreBIPOC, we all win.

To celebrate “Homechella,” below I’ve compiled a list of thirteen EPs/albums released by my favorite, smaller BIPOC artists over the past year if you’re interested in some recs! These are my dream headliners and I encourage you to make your own list and share it with me! I’d love to know which artists are yours.

#BookMoreBIPOC: Tackling Tokenism and Discrimination Within Festival Lineups This “Homechella” Season

Resources/Further Reading