Sexing Up Festival Awards

The U.K. Festival Awards has announced two new categories in which ladies can vote for their favourite male music stars and males can vote for their favourite women.

The new “Festival Fitty” awards are being run in cahoots with the Daily Mirror’s 3am pop pages. The paper’s pop team has drawn up the shortlists and votes can be cast online at the paper’s Web site and the newly launched 3am.co.uk.

The longlists for the annual U.K. Festival Awards (UKFA) have also gone live at festivalawards.com and the first round of public voting has begun.

Of the 464 contemporary music festivals in the U.K. this year, 148 have made it through to the longlists and the festival-going public can now vote on their favourites in each of the 14 public-voted categories.

After a four-week voting period, the UKFA will announce the shortlists in each category and a second round of public voting will begin.

The U.K. Festival Awards will take place at London’s IndigO2 Nov. 19.