Book More Women has been the music festival industry’s watchdog for gender parity for 8 years. Now, they're relaunching to turn their focus from “awareness to action.”
This move follows the release of new 2025 data which revealed the first decline in festival lineup gender diversity in nearly ten years, an unexpectedly backwards shift. They are becoming a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization as a fiscally sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, and have launched the organization’s first crowdfunding campaign.
Since its inception in 2018, Book More Women has analyzed over 550 festival lineups, documenting an increase in female and nonbinary representation from 28% to a peak of 40% in 2024 (acts with at least one woman or nonbinary musician) and holding curators, talent buyers, and the general public accountable to that forward momentum.
But with the reversal in 2025's statistics, Executive Director Abbey Carbonneau realized that advocacy was simply not doing enough to solve the issue.
However, 2025 year-end data exposed a reversal, indicating that awareness campaigns alone are no longer sufficient.
From Awareness to Action
Over the past eight years, the organization has tracked gender diversity across major US festivals and documented how slowly the numbers have moved. Some progress has occurred — but it has not been consistent. Recent analyses have found that only about 22% of musicians booked for major U.S. multi-genre festivals in 2025 were women, highlighting how far the industry still has to go.
As a result, Book More Women has begun expanding beyond awareness campaigns into more direct interventions designed to influence how festivals book artists. Among the initiatives currently being developed:
- BOOKED — a partnership program designed to help festivals set measurable equity goals and create opportunities for underserved artists.
- MEASURED — an investigative podcast examining power structures and gatekeeping within the music industry.
- DIY ARTIST RESOURCE LIBRARY — expansive data reporting and resources that track representation trends and make industry knowledge more accessible for everyone.
Together, these programs aim to move the conversation from identifying the problem to actively building solutions.
Why Representation on Festival Stages Matters
Music festivals remain one of the most powerful platforms for artists to reach new audiences, secure media attention, and build sustainable careers. But when lineups consistently skew toward one demographic, the opportunities — and the economic benefits that come with them — are unevenly distributed.
Book More Women argues that addressing this imbalance requires more than good intentions. It requires transparency, accountability, and concrete changes to the systems that decide who gets booked and promoted. By documenting disparities and pushing the industry to confront them directly, the organization is working to ensure that festival stages—and the broader music ecosystem—reflect the diversity of artists and audiences that make music culture possible.
In short, the message behind the movement is as straightforward as its name: if the industry wants a more equitable future, it has to start by booking more women.
Learn more and support Book More Women's relaunch campaign here. view and support the crowdfunding campaign visit: bookmorewomen.com/relaunch
Founded in 2018, Book More Women is an arts service organization that works to advance gender equity in the music industry through research, education, industry partnership, and direct support programs. Using data and lived community experience, the org is revealing inequities and building practical solutions to help organizations make effective changes, shift narratives surrounding representation, and directly support underrepresented artists and independent events.
