Brian Ferguson: Here’s the real problem with the TRNSMT festival line-up

It has become a bit of depressing tradition for the announcement of the line-up of Scotland’s biggest music festival to be greeted by a torrent of criticism on social media. There surely cannot be another event in the country that generates a greater pile-on of outrage and abuse than the one to greet the annual big reveal by the organisers of TRNSMT and its predecessor, T in the Park.

Grime artist Stormzy is on the TRNSMT festival bill. Picture: Getty

It has been no different this week, with more than 7,800 comments left on the festival’s official Facebook page beneath the launch announcement, the majority less than complimenary. Perhaps the most ironic refrain was ”bring back T in the Park” – although presumably not from anyone who used to post on social media demanding the long-running festival be scrapped due to its declining popularity and repetitive line-ups.

Tabloid newspapers have had a predictable field day trawling through social media posts for verdicts including “reeking” “absolute toilet” and “lineups aimed at middle aged maws.”

I’ve no idea whether festival director Geoff Ellis and his team read the online responses to their line-up announcements.

I’d imagine that they monitor them very closely given how important social media buzz is for ticket sales of any event these days.

They will have a much better idea than me of how many members of their army of online criticis have actually been to T in the Park or TRNSMT in the past. The fact 200,000 people attended the five days of TRNSMT last year in the face of a similar barrage targeted at headliners like Queen and Stereophonics would suggest they maybe know what they are doing.

But there is a particular thread of criticism I’m sure they will be acutely aware of – which the festival shows no sign of shaking off.

It is nothing new for festivals to be tackled on their male-dominated line-ups – and there was little hiding place for TRNSMT from social media campaigns like “Book More Women”.

It wasted no time adapting TRNSMT’s poster to highlight that only 20 per cent of its acts were female. Of those, only Jess Glynne and Sigrid are anywhere near the top of the bill, but only in the third of fourth tier of headliners.

Ellis has not shied away from the issue, admitting the music industry needed to do much more to promote female acts and work harder to develop them to “make them into headliners”. It is also a reasonable defence to point out that he is staging headline shows by Florence and the Machine and Chvrches at the Edinburgh Festival. But surely a festival like TRNSMT has a duty to lead by example and do as much as possible to ensure gender equality – particularly given its status as Scotland’s most high-profile music festival, and arguably one of its most significant cultural events.

Why can it not be running a year-round initiative – perhaps in collaboration with Creative Scotland or the Scottish Music Industry Association – to discover, nurture, encourage and develop a new generation of acts able to step up and emulate the likes of KT Tunstall, Amy Macdonald, Shirley Manson and Lauren Mayberry, the frontwoman of Chrvches, one of last year’s biggest draws at TRNSMT. Frankly, if TRNSMT was publicly funded it would not be able to get away with such a male-dominated line-up. But not having to rely on such a subsidy does not mean it is immune to criticism or should be taking steps to ensure there is a much more level playing field in place in future years.