Isle of Wight Festival promoter John Giddings has taken to social media to apologize for asking suggestions for “lady rock bands” to add to the festival’s 2021 lineup.

The tweet incited backlash over Giddings’s choice of wording. “Please reassess your wording/thought process. I appreciate you are (hopefully) trying to offer women musicians opportunities, but this should be standard, not a token gesture,” Twitter user @okaychloegreen wrote. “Also, ‘lady rock’ is really demeaning.”

Following the criticism, Giddings followed up with an apology for his “wrong choice of words” clarifying that he wasn’t “using the term ‘lady rock’”. “I agree, it would be demeaning,” he wrote. “Apologies that it came out like that.”

He went on to clarify his initial tweet, noting that the festival wanted to “add more non-cis male acts to our line-up”. Look, the word choice might’ve been a wee bit bumbling but you can tell Giddings intentions were good.

In a follow-up tweet, he shared that after his request for suggestions, over a hundred bands put their name forward to perform at the festival.

“After f*****g it up completely (again – so sorry) I am pleased to say that we have over 100 applications for the river stage slot @IsleOfWight 21,” he tweeted. “We now need to listen to them and we will back shortly. Thank you!!”

Isle of Wight will return to Seaclose Park from September 16 to 19. The festival will see headline performances from the likes of Liam Gallagher, Snow Patrol, The Script and Duran Duran.

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