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EDM industry continues to boom, though new opportunities should be pursued

By | Published on Monday 28 May 2012

International Music Summit

The genre that everyone seems to now agree should be called EDM (or electronic dance music on more formal occasions) was under the spotlight once again at the International Music Summit in Ibiza last week.

In particular the latest IMS Business Report was presented, authored by dance music journalist Kevin Watson, and providing some insights into what has certainly been a growing genre of late (especially if you include all that shit dancey-pop music that’s been doing the rounds in the EDM camp, which many people do).

Amongst the many interesting stats in the report were these:

• EDM was the highest growing mainstream genre in the US last year in terms of album sales.

• EDM’s share of singles sales in the UK grew for the first time in four years in 2011.

• The biggest EDM track of last year (Avicii’s ‘Le7els’) had 150 million global views/plays via digital platforms including YouTube.

• EDM DJs have seen the growth of their Facebook fanbases slow slightly in the last year, though numbers of Twitter followers have increased.

• A massive growth in popularity means Skrillex is now the third most popular DJ in the world behind Tiesto and David Guetta (according to Hype That Sound), and research suggests appearances at major US music events (eg Grammys) and festivals have played a part in that growth.

• The global EDM industry is now worth an estimated $4 billion a year when recorded music, live and broadcast activity and other spin off products are taken into account.

So, all good news, though research also presented at IMS by EMI showed that only 30% of EDM’s customer base was really active and passionate about the genre.

With that in mind, the major’s data experts suggested that perhaps too much effort was put into marketing artists and products to the already passionate bit of the market, while opportunities were missed to maximise the revenues that could be generated from the 70% of more casual consumers, most of whom are probably buying releases from the more pop end of the market.

Those consumers will be as interested in the lifestyle as the music, meaning that, for artists who appeal to that demographic, the opportunities possibly lie in product extensions more than the actual music itself.

You can download a copy of EMI’s presentation to IMS here.



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