BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Things not to say to an audience member who questions your festival line-up:
- You’re attacking us like a Nazi;
- You have a screw loose;
- You’re a white privileged nobody;
- You’ll probably suffer depression and you don’t have any reason to keep breathing;
- Your comments are bullsh*t.
Common sense, right?
Wrong.
Bluesfest has ticked all the can’t-believe-they-said-that boxes when responding to a woman who questioned their line-up on Facebook.
You’re probably thinking: What did she even ask to receive such an abusive response? It must have been pretty bad.
Simone Genziuk posted the playful question to Bluesfest on Facebook: “Looks like a sausage fest, where’s all the chicks?”
Now, before we tell you how Bluesfest responded with the lowest-imaginable amount of tact, we’ll give you some background.
The festival recently announced its first artist line-up, in which just four female artists appeared across more than 20 acts. Starting to seem like a reasonable question?
Here’s what the poster looks like with all the male artists removed. Pretty empty.
Leading up to Simone’s question, Industry activist group LISTEN had already made a statement on Facebook: “You have shown women and non binary musicians that they don’t deserve a spot, and if they do, they are not worth getting announced first”.
Bluesfest director Peter Noble responded by telling the group: “Maybe even admit, you screwed up here, and offer an apology”.
But things got personal when Simone questioned this apparent “sausage fest” – Bluesfest had quite a bit to say to her in response, as reported by the ABC:
You attacking events without doing any research on them and starting a media campaign based on your own isms and schisms is the sort of thing that worked well in Nazi Germany.
Find someone to attack because you have a screw loose.
Bet you are an under or unemployed white privileged nobody with too much time on your hands.
Going nowhere fast into a life of depression and loneliness due to you having nothing meaningful to justify why you continue to breathe.
The chicks are running Bluesfest Simi. Or whomever non de plume you are hiding behind. They outnumber men in the company four to one, and they manage too.
Oh….bet you didn’t take the time to find that out. Before you started with your bullsh-t.
Professional? Nope.
Highly offensive? Yep.
Particularly when the woman’s grandparents survived the Holocaust.
Lessons learnt: start including non-male artists on the program, and don’t say stupid stuff.
And telling us that you started work at 5am is not a valid reason (real-life excuse from Peter Noble, who fessed up in The Herald Sun and therefore everything is all okay now).
So. Bluesfest, anyone? Get your tickets here.
Image Peter via Flickr CC-BY-2.0.
