Recently, the organisers of the Scottish festival TRNSMT came under fire for their 2020 line-up that only includes male headliners (Liam Gallagher, The Courteeners, Ian Brown and Lewis Capaldi). Amongst the 13 announced acts are only two female artists - Rita Ora and Little Simz.

In a (poor) attempt to defend the predominantly male line-up, TRNSMT boss Geoff Ellis made an even more questionable statement.

Talking to BBC's Newsbeat, he said, "We'd love there to be a higher representation of females but there isn't, certainly on the acts we're announcing today."

"It will be a while until there's a 50/50 balance. That's definitely several years ahead for any major festival to achieve because there's far, far less female artists."

He continued, arguing, "We need to get more females picking up guitars, forming bands, playing in bands."

"We're giving that platform to help more females see that kind of opportunity because you do get more of a drop-off at a grass roots level and there are less female artists around."

However, many feel that the TRNSMT organisers didn't try hard enough given that Primavera Festival achieved their first 50/50 gender balanced line-up earlier this year. Female artists such as Miley Cyrus, Charli XCX, Lizzo amongst others took the stage at the popular festival.

On social media, Ellis received a fair amount of backlash, with artists like KT Tunstall or The 1975's Matty Healy commenting on his controversial statement.

Check out some of the reactions below:

.@TRNSMTfest If you are the organiser of something, and you don’t WANT a situation to change, and you put fuck all effort into it, then no shit it’ll take years.

Sorry, couldn’t find any pics of us playing guitars.
Maybe we should find some so we can ‘pick them up’ eh? pic.twitter.com/X19S2uJrlH

— KT Tunstall (@KTTunstall) November 27, 2019

Oh look! TOTAL BULLSHIT. @Primavera_Sound 2019 line up. #majoreuropeanfestival pic.twitter.com/MZbsihCj9m

— KT Tunstall (@KTTunstall) November 27, 2019

In recent events of Geoff Ellis deciding that there ‘aren’t enough’ female acts that could play his festival, here is a compilation of them that could if he did any research into music at all.

(Good for Little Simz sneaking a spot in.) pic.twitter.com/ONYvu0XjkA

— pharbie (@loutthew) November 28, 2019