The first line-up announcement for the 30th Byron Bay Bluesfest. ( Supplied: Bluesfest )

The organisers of Byron Bay's Bluesfest have apologised after comparing a woman to a Nazi because she criticised the festival's lack of female artists.

The woman, Simone Genziuk, is Jewish and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.

Ms Genziuk messaged Bluesfest on Facebook after the announcement of the first line-up of performers at next year's festival.

"Looks like a sausage fest, where's the chicks?" she said.

The question was met with the following response from Bluesfest:

"You attacking events without doing any research on them and starting a media campaign based on your own isms and schisms is the sort of thing that worked well in Nazi Germany. Find someone to attack because you have a screw loose. Bet you are an under or unemployed white privileged nobody with too much time on your hands. Going nowhere fast into a life of depression and loneliness due to you having nothing meaningful to justify why you continue to breathe. The chicks are running Bluesfest Simi. Or whomever non de plume you are hiding behind. They outnumber men in the company four to one, and they manage too. Oh....bet you didn't take the time to find that out. Before you started with your bullshit."

Shock at 'Nazi' comparison

Ms Genziuk said she was surprised at the response to what she considered a "cheeky" single comment.

She said, as a Jewish woman, she was particularly shocked by the Nazi comparison.

"My dad is a Holocaust child — they term children of Holocaust survivors as 'Holocaust children' because of the trauma of being brought up by people who had their families murdered and their possessions destroyed by the Nazis," she said.

"It was very hurtful and I don't think this is something you're allowed to just throw around, the term Nazi."

Bluesfest director Peter Noble has apologised to a woman after lashing out at her on Facebook for criticising the festival's line-up. ( Supplied: Bluesfest )

Ms Genziuk assumed she had been mistaken for someone else because she had not been a part of a "media campaign", so she asked who was responding to her message. The reply was "Sausage".

Festival director Peter Noble refused to speak to the ABC, but admitted to the Herald Sun that he posted the responses to Ms Genziuk.

"I exploded on someone," he told the newspaper. "I will contact that person and apologise."

Ms Genziuk received the following apology via Facebook:

"On behalf of Bluesfest, we deeply apologise for offending you with our responses on this Facebook message chain. We value all opinions with the utmost respect, and regret that our responses to you didn't reflect these values. We apologise unreservedly for the tone and poor choices in our response to you, and we also apologise to your family and any others we have offended. We know there are no excuses at all, and as such we don't want to defend our poor choices in our response to you, other than to say sorry after the fact. You have the right to an opinion and should be able to share that right without an offensive response. Yours sincerely, Bluesfest."

Byron Bay's Bluesfest has come under fire for not including enough female artists on its latest line-up. ( ABC North Coast: Samantha Turnbull )

Meanwhile, activist group LISTEN, which promotes the visibility of women and gender non-conforming artists in the music industry, also criticised Bluesfest.

Of the 26 artists announced in the first line-up for next year's festival, four acts featured women: Kasey Chambers, Irish Mythen, Larken Poe and I'm With Her.

LISTEN spokeswoman Elly Scrine said the line-up was disappointing.

"I think in the current climate Bluesfest should know better," she said.

"We need to think about what first line-up announcements indicate — they set the tone for the festival and draw the bulk of ticket sales."

Other artists on the line-up include Jack Johnson, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, Ray Lamontagne, George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic, and Snarky Puppy.