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Wireless Festival 2018: Lily Allen and Annie Mac criticise lack of women

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Wireless Festival has been criticised for a lack of women in the line-up for this year's festival.

Singer Lily Allen said the "struggle is real" for female artists while Radio 1's Annie Mac described it as "appalling".

Only three women - Mabel, Cardi B and Lisa Mercedez - are among the 37 acts announced for the festival which takes place in July.

Wireless told Newsbeat it had no comment on the issue.

Stormzy, J Cole and DJ Khaled will headline this year's Wireless Festival, it was announced on Monday.

Lily was one of the first big names to draw attention to the lack of women on the schedule.

She tweeted a picture of the line-up with all the men removed to highlight the issue.

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Annie Mac responded to Lily's tweet, calling it "appalling" and "so so so embarrassing".

While singer MNEK expressed shock at the lack of women booked by Wireless.

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Ray BLK, who many fans suggested should be performing at the Finsbury Park festival, tweeted to say she'd been asked to attend but was unable to this year.

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Paul Pacifico, CEO of the Association of Independent Music, called the line-up "absurd".

"Half the population are female, half the people attending the event are going to be female - it seems absurd that Wireless wouldn't programme a schedule that was a bit more balanced," he says.

"If it's not the full line-up and there's still room to manoeuvre, I think it's a tremendous opportunity to apply pressure to try to ensure that these things are thought about properly."

Wireless told Newsbeat it has no comment on the response to its line-up, adding that "tickets sold out in 24-hours".

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