EXCLUSIVE: Only 1 in 5 Major Latine Music Festivals Feature Female Performers, Study Finds

Ruidosa is urging the music industry to hire more women in all fields. On Aug. 21, the feminist platform founded by singer-songwriter Francisca Valenzuela partnered with global digital music company Believe and digital music distribution company TuneCore on two new studies that reveal gender disparities in Latin American music. The results, exclusively via Remezcla, showed shockingly low numbers when it comes to female performers at Latine music festivals, as well as the executive roles women hold in the music industry.

After their successful discussion panel moderated by Remezcla’s music editor, Alexis Hodoyán-Gastélum, Ruidosa, the Latin American music festival and platform that promotes Latina talent, is exposing new details about the Latin American-focused festival circuit based on data from 2022 to 2024. In the first study, which examined an estimated 400 festival lineups across seven countries in Latin America and U.S.-based Latine events (such as Bésame Mucho), results showed that only one in five artists at major festival stages were women and that less than one percent were headliners. It also found that only 20 percent of the festivals’ performances featured women solo acts or all-women bands. 

“In a world today where we’re seeing Taylor Swift and Chappell Roan and Charli xcx and Beyoncé in everything, something’s happening in the Latin circuit, because that’s not translating,” Valenzuela says about the studies’ most surprising results of the absence of women in Latin American festival stages. “That’s including solo artists and female bands, which is even more scarce in terms of female bands or female-led bands. I think that was surprising because it does not reflect the international phenomenon.” She points out that their studies also show that barely 50 percent of programming in Latin American festivals are Latin artists, and that the U.S. Latin circuit has the least participation of women, in comparison to Latin American countries. 

Beyond festival lineups, Ruidosa’s second study analyzed over 400 leadership roles at 116 music companies based in Latin America, including labels, streaming services, promoters, and publishers. Turns out there are only two in 10 leadership roles that are held by women, Latina or otherwise. Based on their study, streaming platforms hold the highest women executive representation at 44 percent. Other areas hold lower percentages: in traditional labels, women are only represented in 17 percent of their leadership roles, and event promoters have only nine percent of women representation in said roles. And get this: the study reveals that women only make up 12 percent of top-tier leadership roles at the CEO level. 

Though these percentages are low, Valenzuela hopes to start conversations by revealing these numbers. “First and foremost, having those numbers out there, communicating them, making them available to the whole industry, and seeing where we’re at is very relevant,” she says.

She hopes that these findings will motivate the industry to start “a call to action from public policy and hopefully more inclusion to more personal or professional commitment from men and women to be proactive in inclusion from any sorts – [for example] any friends that they can, whether it’s mentoring, whether it’s being aware of this when they program, whether it’s developing new talent or new initiatives.”

Valenzuela’s call to action is known to be impactful. Knowing the real numbers and the lack of women in festivals and positions of power is the first step to addressing it. Take Ruidosa’s 2018 study on women’s participation in music festivals in Latin America, which helped implement a quota law in Argentina requiring 30 percent of festival lineups to be women. The South American country is now a leader in the inclusion of female performers in Latin America.

Next up, Ruidiosa’s all-women’s festival will happen on Oct. 11 and 12 in Santiago, Chile. The lineup features artists like Myriam Hernández, Javiera Mena, Villano Antillano, and more.