Ellie Goulding takes aim at music festivals' lack of female performers

Ellie Goulding took aim at the lack of female performers at music festivals in a series of impassioned tweets on Saturday (01Jul17).

The 30-year-old British singer is a regular on the festival circuit, with performances at the Lastochka Festival in Russia and V Festival in England among her upcoming gigs. But as she thanked her fans for their continued support at these type of performances, Ellie also referenced her concern about the inequality in the industry when it comes to festival line-ups.

"Still so proud as a female artist to be headling (sic) and playing festivals around the world every single year. Thank you for continually believing in me. It always feels like a triumph to win so many people over who were waiting for a band,” she wrote.

"Need to give myself credit sometimes as I've been doing this non stop for over seven years. I don't see many females at these festivals."

It's not the first time the Love Me Like You Do star has spoken out about this issue. Back in 2015, Ellie spoke about Britain's Glastonbury festival, telling Cosmopolitan at the time: "I got annoyed when Glastonbury had so many men on the line-up."

However, she also acknowledged that her feelings changed when she saw Florence and the Machine headline that year's Glastonbury, adding to the magazine: "Then Florence headlined. Things are changing, you know? And I love it."

Ellie's tweets come after the Huffington Post conducted a study last year which compared the number of male and female artists booked for festivals. It found that the 2016 Coachella festival had 168 male artists on their line-up, compared to just 60 women, while Lollapalooza enlisted 124 male groups for their festival, and 47 with female members.

Following the study, things appeared to be changing for the better in terms of the line-ups for 2017 festivals, with Lady Gaga headlining Coachella after pregnant Beyonce had to pull out, while Katy Perry, Lorde and Beyonce's sister Solange Knowles were among those taking to the stage at Glastonbury.