IMS Releases Annual Electronic Music Business Report, EDM Still Big Draw For Festivals

Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the International Music Summit (IMS), an annual symposium in Ibiza with electronic music industry biggest players. The event featured keynotes and panels from Pacha Group owner Ricardo Urgell, AFEM’s Mark Lawrence, and influential DJs such as The Black Madonna and Seth Troxler. Founded by long-standing BBC Radio 1 host Pete Tong and industry mogul Ben Turner, the event’s flagship Ibiza summit has become one of the most valued meeting points for the dance music community. Recent years have seen the event’s influence expand with the debut of conferences in both Los Angeles and Shanghai, the latter indicating just how much focus the electronic music industry is placing on Asia. Every year the event commences with the much-anticipated IMS Business Report, a detailed, data-driven overview of the state of electronic music compiled by Kevin Watson of Danceonomics.com. As EDM has been arguably the most dominant festival sound of the last five years, we picked out some of the most compelling statistics from the report.

  • Electronic music industry globally is up 3% and is estimated to be worth $7.4bn
  • A study of 24 festivals found that only 17% of artists booked were female (CTM Festival in Berlin booked 45% female)
  • Tomorrowland and Ultra used partner events (Unite and Road to Ultra respectively) to expand their reach into new territories
  • Electronic music is the 5th most listened to genre in the US, with 57% of all dance “sales” coming from streaming (via Nielsen)
  • Global Entertainment acquired three festival brands, and within two years became the second-biggest festival operator in the UK
  • In ten years, Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas (then Los Angeles) has grown in capacity from 65k to 400k, while Tomorrowland (Belgium) has grown from 50k to 360k.

To download the full IMS Business Report, click here.

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