Camp CopeOrganisers of Falls Festival have hit back at claims made by Camp Cope that this year's line-up lacked women, insisting they have a "very conscious and strong agenda" to book female talent.
During their set at the festival's Byron Bay leg, singer Georgia Maq changed some of the lyrics in their song, The Opener, to call out Falls, singing, "It's another man telling us we can't fill up a tent, it's another fucking festival booking only nine women".
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Falls Festival co-producer, Jessica Ducrou, responded to the comments in a statement given to The Music today.
"We book the best bands available at the time of booking taking gender balance into consideration, which can be challenging," the statement reads.
"Whilst we have a very conscious and strong agenda to book female talent, it isn’t always available to us at that headline level. We have a long term strategy, which is present on this year’s Falls line up, of giving opportunities to new and middle range female Australian artists, to nurture and grow the future pool of female headline options.
"We support the core message of gender balance and have been working towards a more balanced line up at Falls. We have seen other bands who are passionate about this topic go out and started their own events where they have total control of the line-up, with great success and we applauded their initiative. Taking control yourself, is a great way to effect change.”
