When the first wave of Glastonbury performers was unveiled last month, actual living legend Janet Jackson’s name appeared fifth on the bill. Yes it was on the top row, next to headliners the Killers, Stormzy and the Cure, and just after Sunday head-soother Kylie. But fifth all the same.
By the time the poster was shared on Janet’s social media channels, however, the hierarchy had been reshuffled, with “JANET JACKSON” taking pride of place at the top of the lineup, miles away, metaphorically, from the words “George Ezra”.
While it is unclear whether Jackson or the festival produced this reshuffled version, disagreements over lineup status are commonplace. Last January, the rapper 2 Chainz took umbrage with being on row eight of the Governors Ball lineup (“Whoever did this flyer need to do it over!!!” he suggested on Instagram), while earlier this year Nigerian star Burna Boy called out Coachella for reducing an “AFRICAN GIANT” to “whatever that tiny writing means”. And who could forget Netflix’s Fyre festival documentary? The second most memorable quote (after the one about offering sexual favours in return for Evian) came from an inexperienced booker, who – when faced with an irate live agent – muttered innocently: “I mean, it’s just a font size.”
As Joan Vich Montaner, a booker for the Spanish mega-festival Benicàssim, points out, the back and forth between agents and events is complex. “[Agents] have to deliver the news to the artists and in some cases I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes!” Explaining poster placement can be brutal. “The scariest [response I’ve had] was: ‘Is this a joke’,” he says. “Not even a question mark.”
While Montaner thought that the Janet swap was “unexpected and unorthodox”, one (anonymous) operations manager suspects it was an exercise in peace-keeping. “Maybe it just got to a point where Glastonbury were like: ‘Fine, we’ll do you a separate version,’” he says. Of the importance of font size, our source says: “I guess a big part of it is the agents trying to prove their worth by demonstrating how big they can get their bands’ names.” Beyond an act’s ticket sales, running orders tend to be based on empirical measurements of success rather than anything scientific. The power struggle can get out of hand. “I can’t really name names, but every year, whenever we do our announcement, we have a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with any number of factors used by agents to try and get moved up.”
So how can all this desecrating of egos be avoided? “There are various things you can do to reduce the amount of back and forth,” Montaner says. “Like, if you organise it alphabetically that negates the whole argument … In fact, it probably should just be done like that!”
Although, font politics aside, the Killers still shouldn’t be above Janet.
