According to Wall Street veteran John Langdon and his company Massive Advisors, LLC, the value of the thriving EDM industry is somewhere in the range of $15 to $20 billion.
Those figures came from the company’s first ever “Massive EDM White Paper”, a market study of the global electronic dance music industry. The study attributes much of this value to the rapid growth of the global festival market, which according to the report has seen a 33% increase in the total number of yearly festivals worldwide, equating to roughly $4.5 billion in sales in 2012 alone. Another contributing factor is increased revenue from digital music sales and streaming through over 500 different services.
The paper also draws some interesting conclusions about the effects of dance music on the global music industry at large. For instance, Langdon attributes much of the global success of Adele’s mega-hit Rolling In the Deep to the fact that “it was remixed over 150 times (as listed on Spotify).” The paper continues to read that the “Top 10 Global Selling Single successes…are highly correlated to the number of times the track has been remixed by a DJ Mag Top 100 DJ.”
The growth of any major industry is sure to draw the attention of Wall Street, but what’s startling here is the White Paper’s claim that governments and businesses are still largely ignoring what’s rapidly become one of the dominant music scenes. And EDM fans may not be too happy with the fish-in-a-barrel opportunity Langdon seems to be presenting to potential investors. “If Massive Advisors were to tell you where 3.4 million people will be,” the paper continues, “trapped and captivated for 3 days on average, with a common musical interest and common experience, regardless of destination — who are young, highly inclined toward purchase, technologically facile, with significant disposable income –would you prefer to advertise on a Super Bowl spot or focus your market attention directly toward these 3.4 million people?”
What do you think about the report? You can read an excerpt from the White Paper here.