European festival becomes the first to achieve a 50/50 line-up gender split

With the dust having settled on Primavera's two European festival outings for 2019 in Barcelona and Porto, organisers have begun reflecting on the line-up for their Barcelona edition of which more than half the acts were female or fronted by a woman.

More than 100 festivals signed up to a pledge by Keychange last year to achieve a 50/50 gender balance within their line-ups by 2022. Primavera, however, set about quietly making the change instantly, and the team behind booking the festival have spoken about how simple a process it was for them.

"We love music and if you love music in 2019 it's quite obvious that it's done both by men and women the same way," said Primavera's Marta Pallares Olivares.

After last year's edition, which saw around 35% of the line-up made up of female or female-fronted acts, it was decided that they would achieve their 50/50 goal this year, with this commitment set to continue as something Primavera is calling "the new normal".

Amongst the women that played this year's Primavera Sound were Robyn, Helena Hauff, Nina Kraviz, Roza Terenzi, object blue and recent DJ Mag cover star Anastasia Kristensen.

"It's not difficult once your mind is set - when you decide that you want to do this, you start looking for female bands and see that you have been listening to them during the last month," Marta Pallares Olivares also told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat. "I will say to all those people who say there are not enough female acts out there - because I've heard that - that it's simply a lie. They are out there - because they're here."

Primavera recently revealed that it will be heading to the US for the first time next year, holding an event in Los Angeles in addition to the usual European festivals in Barcelona and Porto.