Females to the front.
There are women smashing the glass ceiling every damn day of the year, and while the music industry has moved forward in the fight for gender equality, there’s still further to go, especially when it comes to festival lineups – an area where female artists are frequently outnumbered.
To help bring back the balance, The Sweethearts Foundation is putting women at centre stage with a brand-new festival in Geelong, boasting a dazzling all-female lineup on Sunday, May 30.
The key takeaways
- Sweetfest is a free, all ages, 100% female line-up music festival
- Sweetfest is all about celebrating women in music, especially those from the Geelong region
- The festival takes place in Little Malop Street on May 30 2021
Keep up with the latest festival news via our website.
The desire to see more females on event lineups is a pressing issue in the musical world at the moment and Geelong being the inclusive music community it is, has truly embraced the opportunity of an all-female lineup this month, spearheaded by The Sweethearts Foundation.
A not-for-profit group, The Sweethearts Foundation is all about providing performance opportunities for young women. Supporting and running the Sweethearts program for the last 20 years – an ever-changing all-female band with a reputation for sassy neo-soul, punchy originals and great entertainment – this astounding free festival is just another element of the foundation’s work that aims to broaden opportunities to women throughout the Geelong and Melbourne areas.
Bringing women to the front, Sweetfest will take over the Little Malop Precinct in Geelong from 11am to 6pm with four stages of live music from a selection of the best national and local female musicians, as well as industry workshops, Q&As and panels.
Supplying the tunes will be the much-loved Alex Lahey, one of the handfuls of solo-female rockers to come out of Australia in recent years. Armed with undeniable talent, obvious skill and a relentless commitment to perfecting her craft, Lahey has been riding the rollercoaster of success since announcing herself to the world (and our playlists) in 2016 with her debut EP ‘B-Grade University’ which catapulted the Geelong-born singer-songwriter into popularity with fans and critics alike. Her appearance at the festival this month with those gnashing garage rock sounds, honest lyrics and infectious hooks that we’ve come to know and love promises to be a highlight for the musical calendar.
Alongside Lahey, the festival will also feature the unshakable elegance and undeniable talent of Hayley Mary (of The Jezabels), acclaimed Indigenous vocalist and Melbourne rhythm combo Emma Donovan & The Putbacks, the renowned local 30-piece all-female soul band Sweethearts, Melbourne poetic punk-rockers Ebony and the Dilemmas, the soulful Fulton Street, and Geelong-based sensuous, enigmatic six-piece Cry Baby.
Further rounding out this truly astounding collection of female talents, the festival will also see the likes of Bellarine based mystical, psychedelic post-rock four-piece Sirens, Geelong mainstay singer-songwriter and guitarist Rach Brennan, Surf Coast alt-pop artist Libby Steel, Torquay folk muso Ella Sweeney, Ocean Grove talent Kim Cooper, as well as Younghearts, Mink Mila, Lique, Andrea Robertson, Carly Robertson, Hassall, Operation Karma and Brunette Red Dress.
Just wow. What an incredible lineup of female flair.
This is a free, all-ages event. It all goes down on Sunday, May 30 in the Little Malop Precinct, Geelong.
