Quebec music festival facing backlash for not including female artists, headliner pulls out

A Quebec summer music festival with an all-male lineup has lost at least one big-name act and is being criticized for ignoring female artists.

The backlash started online and intensified after popular singer-songwriter Emile Bilodeau announced he had dropped out of the 16th edition of Festi-Plage de Cap-d’Espoir, on Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula.

Bilodeau said Wednesday that not only artists, but everyone in the music industry, including festival organizers, have a role to play to increase female representation. He said he couldn’t take part in an event that didn’t share his values.

“I work with amazing women and learned my craft from the best,” Bilodeau said in a statement on Facebook. “In fact, it is thanks to them that I am the artist, and above all, the man that I am today.”

Festi-Plage, which will be held on July 27-30, is scheduled to showcase a variety of musical genres, including Quebec folk, rap and funk music. The 14 featured acts are entirely male — except Les Cowboys Fringants, a four-person band with a female member.

Festival organizer Ghislain Pitre said on Thursday he was disappointed by Bilodeau’s reaction and surprised by the criticism.

“We didn’t see it coming,” Pitre said in an interview. “We have Les Cowboys Fringants; we’re not 100 per cent male-only.” He said one of the artists, comedian P-A Methot, is also putting together a performance that will include women.

Pitre, however, said he was unable to find a single female musician or female-majority band available that had a musical style aligned with the festival.

“We’re not against women; we looked at who was available and what best suits our clientele,” he said, adding that the festival would replace Bilodeau with a female artist.

“We’re a festive festival; we’re not an emerging music festival. People are on the beach, they’re dancing, they’re having a beer. It’s not a piano concert.”

Fannie Crepin, co-founder of Musique Bleue — a group that promotes Quebec-made music — said she finds Pitre’s explanation to be outdated and inexcusable.

Crepin said she asked a friend earlier this week to put together a playlist of Quebec female artists, “from every musical style possible,” to celebrate International Women’s Day.

“It took less than one hour and she came back with one hundred names,” Crepin said in an interview Thursday.

Crepin welcomed Bilodeau’s decision and called it a first in Quebec, saying she couldn’t recall a time when a male artist had withdrawn from a show due to a lack of female performers.

“We’ve been asking for it for so long,” Crepin said. “Despite our efforts to promote women, it remains that we see a lot of impact when men react to inequality ? When men say they are allies but they don’t act accordingly, we just go around in circles.”

Crepin lamented how women are still under-represented in commercial radio playlists and in festivals. She echoed Bilodeau’s comments and said the music industry altogether needs to work toward changing that reality.

She also called on the provincial government to stop funding festivals that don’t meet gender parity requirements. “Festivals have become the main showcase for artists, so when they do something like that, it really hurts,” Crepin said.

“If festivals aren’t booking women, labels are not doing it either. Somebody, somewhere, has to put in the effort at one point.”

Sebastien Fournier, director of Festi Jazz international de Rimouski, a festival located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, north of Quebec City, agreed with Crepin. He said the industry has to start trusting that audiences might appreciate a wider variety of artists than what’s played on the radio.

“It’s not because the artist isn’t included by the big commercial radios that it’s not good music that will attract a crowd,” Fournier said in an interview Thursday. “There are enough female artists for them to be headliners, you just have to have a vision and creativity.”

Pitre, however, said his audience prefers well-known artists. “We book who’s popular,” he said. “Our audience is regional and large, we are not in Montreal where you can come up with an emerging artist.”

But Fournier, who booked artists for the popular Sea Shack hostel in Gaspésie, Que., for seven years before joining the Festi Jazz, said the curiosity is there.

“Sometimes, you have to realize people are already on-site; there’s an event, so let’s give a chance to some artists,” he said.