Every December, the world’s attention turns to Yas Island. The Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix closes the season under floodlights, and around the circuit the city stages one of the most expensive entertainment programmes in the region: after-race concerts, terraces with panoramic views of the track, official after-parties and a week designed to be photographed, filmed and shared with the world.
Music is not decoration in this programme. It is the product. And when the headline DJs for race week were announced, the line-up was unanimous in one respect: not a single woman.
Four headline DJ acts. Zero women.
The guest DJs announced for the 16/360 terrace from Friday to Sunday, and the act chosen to headline the Official After-Party, are all men. These are the names that sell the premium hospitality, carry the marketing and define what the most international week on the UAE calendar sounds like after dark.
Women on stage. Not in the booth.
The after-race concerts do include women, and that detail matters. The programme has no difficulty placing a woman in front of a microphone. The difficulty begins at the decks, the position that in electronic music carries the most authority: the one who reads the crowd, controls the tempo and leads the room until the end of the night.
It would be easy to call this a coincidence. It is harder to explain why the same coincidence repeats itself, season after season, in the most visible positions of the region’s biggest events. Last month, our first editorial reviewed 18 major electronic music announcements for the UAE’s 2026/2027 season and found a woman in the spotlight of only two. The Grand Prix does not break the pattern. It amplifies it, with a global audience watching.
Meanwhile, elsewhere
This week, fabric London hosts Change The Beat: a full day of panels, an industry mixer, a photo exhibition dedicated to the women who shaped electronic music and a club night led by TSHA, Kitty Amor, Emily Nash, Sydney Blu and N1NJA. The organisation behind it, founded by Sydney Blu, has pledged 300 label opportunities for women and gender-expansive artists by 2028. In the same city, Desiree has just headlined KOKO Camden, her biggest London show to date.
DJ Mag has chosen Amelie Lens, more than six months pregnant and still playing some of the world’s biggest dancefloors, as the cover star of its new quarterly print edition, in an interview about motherhood, ambition and industry sexism. Mixmag Latam has given its cover to Stella Bossi, who argues that empowerment should be measured in real opportunities, fair pay and representation. Amsterdam Dance Event celebrates thirty years. Rock in Rio returned to Brazil in September. Both created several high-visibility spaces in their programmes for women in electronic music.
Amelie Lens — DJ Mag quarterly print edition.
Stella Bossi — Mixmag Latam cover story.The direction of travel is not a secret.
None of these decisions were charity. They were editorial and commercial choices made by organisations that understand where the culture is going and who is building it. Visibility is not a favour granted to women. It is a reading of the market.
The 85 we already have
The usual answer is that there are not enough women to book. The UAE answers that question on its own. The DJaneMag UAE community was officially launched at the end of August. Six weeks later, it brings together more than 85 female DJs based in the Emirates, of different nationalities, ages and backgrounds: percussionists, models, mothers, entrepreneurs, music producers, event producers and DJs.
Few of them can live from DJing alone. Most balance it with a second profession, not because their sets are weaker, but because the market rarely offers them the slots, the fees and the visibility that turn a talent into a career. When they do appear, it is too often in the smallest font on the poster, at the warm-up hour, in the room nobody photographs.
A headline is not just a time slot. It is how an industry decides who is worth paying, who is worth promoting and who is worth remembering.
A question for the people who book
I am not writing this to diminish any artist on the bill. Every one of them earned their place. I am writing because a week built to show the UAE to the world is also a statement about who represents its culture, and right now that statement leaves the women of this scene out of the booth.
Promoters, venues and brands: when you plan the next race week, look beyond the names that are already safe. There are 85 women in this country ready to play. Some of them are ready to headline. All of them are ready to be asked.
The finale is still seven weeks away. There is time to change the soundtrack.