By Catherine Redfern | 29 May 2006, 16:20

Ladyfest Newcastle, the music and arts festival taking place in September, is looking for imaginative, creative designs to use on official festival t shirts. Anyone can enter, regardless of age or gender, and the winners will receive free festival tickets and free merchandise.

Ladyfest will be taking place over a weekend in late September and feature music, art, photography, spoken word poetry and workshops. The workshops will cover a variety of subjects, from learning how to play drums and DJ to discussions on how fluid gender is, and whether or not pornography can be feminist.

Heather Barry, one of the Ladyfest organisers, explained: \x93The aim of Ladyfest is to redress the gender imbalance of most mainstream festivals. For example, at this year\x92s Carling Weekend festival at Leeds/Reading, 51 of the 60 bands on the line-up are all-male. There is one solo female artist and no all-female bands. This is a huge shame - there are loads of fantastic female musicians out there, both in the North East and nationally, and we just want to give them the exposure they deserve.

\x93Ladyfest is a music festival, but it\x92s also a general celebration of women\x92s creative talents in other fields, and a chance to learn some new skills and discuss some interesting ideas. We\x92re running the tshirt design competition to encourage people to get involved in what we\x92re doing. Ladyfest is not-for-profit and entirely volunteer-run, so the more people involved the better it will be!\x94

Designs will be used on tshirts, badges and other merchandise, and can be image or slogan-based. They should follow the general Ladyfest ethos of being pro-women but not anti-men \x96 men can be feminists too!

See www.ladyfestnewcastle.co.uk for more information, or email info@ladyfestnewcastle.co.uk. The deadline for entries is Thursday 22nd June.