For DJ (and chartered accountant) Ali Miraj, house music is still on the rise. And the numbers back him up.
“Not everyone understands house music”, as the words of one club anthem make clear. How times have changed. From its humble origins in a Chicago nightclub in the 1980s the genre – now dubbed electronic dance music (EDM) – has exploded into the mainstream.
And the financials reflect what has happened. According to a report commissioned last year for the International Music Summit, the EDM market is valued at approximately $4bn annually with recorded-music sales revenue representing 5.1 per cent of the global music market.
James Palumbo, an Eton- and Oxford-educated former investment banker who established the Ministry of Sound (MOS) – a nightclub in South London – in 1991, was one of the first to recognise the huge money-making potential of the industry. Having successfully built a global brand, the MOS group is now a multi-million pound business spanning merchandising, events, radio, mobile applications and bars, as well as a number of record labels including the hugely popular HedKandi. Others such as Pacha and Space from Ibiza have also leveraged their brand identity internationally.
The appeal of EDM has also been driven by DJ/producers such as David Guetta and Calvin Harris who travel between venues on private jets commanding up to $100,000 a night. Cracking the US market has been key. According to Nielsen Soundscan – an industry data-provider – 46.6 million digital electronic/dance tracks were sold in the US in the first half of 2012, making it the fastest-growing music genre with a 65.2 per cent increase compared to the previous year.
As well as music sales there is real money to be made in events. Last December Swedish House Mafia saw tickets to their performance at Madison Square Garden in New York sell out in just nine minutes. Beacon Economics, a consultancy, which was commissioned to assess the financial impact of the Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas this year on the regional economy, found that the event generated an estimated $136m for businesses including hotels and restaurants. The Ultra Music Festival – where the industry’s great and good hobnob by swanky hotel pools and engage in panel discussions on challenges facing the industry – attracted some 200,000 people.
In the UK, Live Nation Entertainment acquired Cream Holdings Limited in May this year for £13.9m ($21.9m) and intends to launch new festivals in North America, Europe and Southeast Asia. Pete Tong, a UK-based DJ who has long been at the forefront of the scene, has said there is increasing interest in emerging markets demonstrated by the Sunburn festival in Goa, India as well as huge potential in China.
With the numbers showing anything but a slow down, some fret about the fickle nature of the music industry and predict the hype may die down. But for now, at least, the beat goes on.
This story was originally written for economia.
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