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Olivia Rodrigo and Brandi Carlile Are Debunking the Myth That Women Can’t Lead Festivals
Olivia Rodrigo has launched her first festival, Daisy Chain Fields, which will take place on 29 August 2026 in Irvine, California, featuring an entirely female lineup and donating all profits to organisations supporting women and girls. The event, developed with guidance from Brandi Carlile (who has run her own all-women festival, Girls Just Wanna Weekend, since 2019), is aimed at challenging long-standing music industry assumptions that women cannot headline festivals, sell tickets as well as men, or be booked back-to-back on a bill.
The Daisy Chain Fields lineup spans multiple generations of artists, including Sarah McLachlan, Chappell Roan, Bikini Kill, Stevie Nicks, Mitski and Doechii, and the festival sold out during its presale. Rodrigo cited McLachlan's pioneering 1996 all-female festival Lilith Fair as an inspiration, while industry figures point to new Luminate data showing Gen Z women outpacing men in concert ticket sales as evidence that the "women can't sell tickets" myth is outdated and that all-female lineups can be commercially successful when curated well.
In short
- Olivia Rodrigo's all-women festival Daisy Chain Fields sold out in presale
- Event, backed by Brandi Carlile, takes place 29 August 2026 in Irvine, California
- Profits go to women's charities; aims to debunk myths about female-led lineups
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
An all-women festival can offer artists a prominent platform in an industry where women have often been underrepresented, while challenging assumptions about who can headline and draw an audience. Its sell-out presale and the reported growth in concertgoing among Gen Z women suggest there is both demand and a viable audience for thoughtfully curated lineups; donating profits to organisations supporting women and girls extends that purpose.
The case against
A festival organised around gender may be seen as an imperfect way to address inequality: it could risk narrowing opportunities or reinforcing the idea that women’s work belongs in a separate category. A sell-out presale is encouraging but does not, on its own, establish that all-women festivals are broadly commercially sustainable or settle questions about representation across the industry; lasting progress may also depend on fair access throughout mixed-gender events and music careers.
Explained simply
The music industry has long assumed that women cannot successfully headline festivals or draw audiences as effectively as men. This assumption has shaped booking decisions and festival programming for decades. All-female festivals being launched today are providing a direct test of whether this assumption is valid.
Olivia Rodrigo, a popular singer-songwriter, has created Daisy Chain Fields, an all-female festival scheduled for August 2026 in Irvine, California, with artists spanning multiple generations. She developed the festival with guidance from Brandi Carlile, who has run her own all-women festival called Girls Just Wanna Weekend since 2019. Both are examples of all-female festival programming with roots in earlier ventures such as the 1996 festival Lilith Fair, which Rodrigo cited as an inspiration.
The emergence of these festivals matters because they test whether the industry's longstanding assumptions about women and commercial viability are accurate. Recent data shows that young women are now purchasing concert tickets at higher rates than young men. The commercial success of these all-female lineups may prompt the industry to reconsider how it books and programmes its major events.