Matt Healy Says The 1975 Won't Play Festivals With Gender Imbalance

The 1975 frontman Matt Healy has said the band will no longer play festivals with a gender imbalance.

PA

He made the pledge after the organisers of Reading and Leeds Festival came under fire over their line-up, with only 20 of the 91 initially announced acts featuring women.

On Twitter, Guardian writer Laura Snapes encouraged Healy to only play festivals where 50 percent of the performers are women and non-binary performers, and he replied agreeing to the pledge.

Snapes praised the commitment, adding that she would be interested to see how he negotiated these terms with booking agents, and Healy replied: "Yeah f*** knows and I'm sure my agents are having kittens right now, but times up man, people need to act and not chat, thanks for the kick up the a**e snapes you're making a difference."

Maxie Gedge, who runs Keychange - an initiative which aims to achieve a 50/50 gender balance by 2022 - described Healy as an 'an ally that we appreciate'.

According to the BBC, Maxie said: "Working together and doing everything we can to ensure equality in the music industry is crucial if we're to make change happen.

"Since 2017 over 300 festivals and music organisations have signed up to our Keychange pledge for gender equality and we'd be more than happy to put Matt in touch with all of the festivals that pledged - including those that have already reached a gender parity with their line-ups ahead of their 2022 target date."

The 1975 are holding their own one-day festival in London's Finsbury Park this summer, where six of the seven support acts are female or have female band members. They also won the Band of the Decade award at last night's NME Awards.

Topics: Music, UK Entertainment

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey