Isle Of Wight Festival promoter John Giddings has apologised after asking for suggestions of “lady rock bands” to add to the festival’s line-up.

After tweeting the request, the festival organiser was criticised on social media for his choice of wording.

“Please reassess your wording/thought process. I appreciate you are (hopefully) trying to offer women musicians opportunities, but this should be standard, not a token gesture,” Twitter user @okaychloegreen wrote. “Also, ‘lady rock’ is really demeaning.”