Creative women in Manchester are gearing up for Ladyfest, the north’s biggest celebration of females in music, film and other artistic industries.
Kicking off Friday, October 7, the festival will take over the Northern Quarter, hosting club nights with female DJs, gigs featuring female musicians and many other events focused around gender equality and diversity over the weekend.
Speaking to MM, Carly Vandella, 32, who has been involved with organising the festival since 2015, spoke out about its ethos.
She said: “Manchester is a really fertile ground for creativity and there are a lot of amazing creative women who are doing all sorts of amazing things in the music industry, in events, in community organising and in DJing.
“The aim is to bring in lots of different women who are involved in creative areas within Manchester to give them the opportunity to support and promote each other and have a big party at the same time.”
The main event of the weekend will be Ladyfest live on Saturday, October 8; a mini-festival spread across venues in the Northern Quarter, and the line-up has a range of musicians for music fans to get excited about.
Manchester-based post-punk band Liines will join indie pop two-piece at Gullivers bar and influential American punk songwriter Honeychild Coleman will headline The Castle on Saturday.
Commenting on the line-up, Carly said: “Liines are an all female Manchester band who are really on the edge of doing something big.
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“They’ve got so much energy, they’re so raw and every time I see them they absolutely knock me sideways.
“Having Honey Child Coleman coming over from Brooklyn for a gig is also unbelievable, this is a woman who set up the first ever black woman focussed punk scene in the 90s.
“She’s written music for movies that have won awards at the Sundance Film Festival and to have her on stage is really incredible.”
To coincide with Manchester being the European City of Science this year, Ladyfest will also give women the chance to learn tech-based skills such as coding and game design in workshops taking place on Saturday.
Commenting on the workshops, Carly said: “Last year we did a few workshops that were popular like sound production and digital photography.
“We found participants were keen to try different tech and media based activities, but weren’t able to because of factors like childcare, cost, time and they didn’t have the confidence to try because of the gendered messages given out by those industries.
“This year, we thought why not put these activities on in a supportive and friendly environment?”
Women with children and babies are welcome to come to the events, which are happening throughout the day on Saturday.
For the full programme and more information go to https://ladyfestmanc.com/.
