Festival boss Geoff Ellis said there needs to be “more females picking up guitars” to address the music festival gender imbalance as he announced the headliners for next year’s TRNSMT.
Lewis Capaldi and Liam Gallagher will return to top the festival bill in 2020, alongside the Courteeners.
Rita Ora, Snow Patrol Ian Brown, Foals, Keane and Twin Atlantic also confirmed to play over the weekend of July 10-12 at Glasgow Green next year.
Ellis also confirmed that the Queen Tut’s stage - introduced last year for female acts in response to criticism over a male-dominated line-up - will return to the festival.
- READ MORE: TRNSMT 2020: Courteeners, Liam Gallagher and Lewis Capaldi to headline Glasgow Green festival
The stage, unveiled as a drive to tackle the festival promoters admit is a “gender play gap”, attracted backlash from the Musicians Union.
Mr Ellis said: “We’d love there to be a higher representation of females but there isn’t, certainly on the acts we’re announcing today, but it will be a while until there’s a 50/50 balance.
“That’s definitely several years ahead for any major festival to achieve because there’s far, far less female artists.
“We need to get more females picking up guitars, forming bands, playing in bands.
“That’s why we’re giving that platform to help more females see that kind of opportunity because you do get more of a drop-off at a grass roots level and there’s less female artists around.”
He added: “It’s not just about booking more female acts because if there’s less of them then there’s less of them to go round all the festivals.
“But there’s definitely more to come - they’re just not over the line yet.
“Rita Ora is an arena-level act, Little Simz will be an arena-level act in the future, I’m sure.”
A number of the acts announced for this year’s TRNSMT are returning names.
Liam Gallagher previously headlined in 2018 edition of the festival and will again headline on Saturday, July 11.
Courteeners took to the main stage before Gallagher in 2018 but will headline on Friday July 10, with Ian Brown playing beforehand.
Of these year’s line-up, Mr Ellis hailed the meteoric rise of Capaldi.
The 23-year-old singer, who was a lastminute addition after Snow Patrol were forced to pull out last year, will return to close the festival on Sunday. Mr Ellis said: “He deserves that headline slot. What he’s doing internationally is amazing.
“He is the most in-demand artist and sometimes I think when somebody is a local artist or local to Scotland, people maybe don’t realise quite how big he is everywhere else and he is a real, true, global superstar but still with his feet firmly on the ground.”
Mr Ellis said: “(Gallagher)’s big in Scotland and, for Oasis, Scotland’s always been one of their biggest regions in UK terms for being very, very strong for them.
“You look at trajectories of people and Courteeners ... there’s something about guitar bands and Scotland, and it does change once you probably get to Manchester and going north it changes.
“This is their first UK major festival headline - they’ve headlined smaller festivals before but not major in terms of 50,000 people and above.
“And they deserve it. They’re a really great energetic live act with some great anthemic songs.
“In fact there’s quite a strong Manchester connection on the Friday when you add Aitch, Blossoms, Ian Brown and Courteeners.”
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