EMC Day One: ’Generation Experience’, the EDM bubble, and rising artist costs

The Electronic Music Conference kicked off yesterday at Sydney’s Carriageworks to an enthusiastic and able-eared crew of industry professionals. The event, which debuted last year, has grown massively with more than twice as many speakers, contributors and industry heads getting down to weigh in and share their experience. The first morning saw keynotes delivered from Beatport CEO Matthew Adell, Neil Akland of Sound Alliance, Kerri Mason GM of Inthemix US, a one-on-one with the ‘world’s busiest superstar’ Armin Van Buuren, and many many more.

The day began with the results of a world first survey of the States’ current affiliation with electronic dance music. The study aimed to reveal precisely the extent of the obsession surrounding EDM in the States, whether or not it was a bubble, and if it was, how soon until it bursts – the results were interesting.

Apart from the blatant overuse of the term EDM (which kinda makes me cringe a bit), the study found that what this generation of young Americans value is the experience. Dubbed ’Generation Experience’ by the study, it claims kids are flocking to the genre because of the feeling of togetherness, and euphoria experienced inside a crowd of 50,000 people dancing to the same beat. In a world of social media and disconnection, it’s a refreshing change. In fact the study showed that of all surveyed, dance music fans tend to prefer experiences over things: they spend more money going to clubs than they do on material items.

The study also found that although it’s blown up in a relatively short time to the behemoth that exists now, it’s definitely not mainstream; about 50% of those surveyed didn’t even know the genre existed. Rock music is still heavily favoured.

The overall tone of the findings, though, was that togetherness is the appeal, some of those studied calling it a religious experience, bringing tears and overwhelming them at the sheer sight of production (trust Americans to blow it so far out of proportion). Either way, it’s an interesting study, with the full results published next March.

Following that, the charismatic CEO of Beatport, Matthew Adell, graced the stage, reminiscing about the days of old. ‘Americans invented EDM’ he quipped, truly it came about through the suburbs of Chicago and Detroit. Trust that it took it reaching overseas, maturing, expanding and then organically finding its way home to make them pay attention. He recalled the early days, his first transcendental clubbing experience (which became a theme of the presentation), his early days working in second hand record stores, to working for the legal Napster, and finally getting headhunted by Beatport.

Talking through crazy hair and (indoor) sunglasses and telling stories of his punk past and pink Mohawks, we eventually got to how the Internet and modern technology has resulted in an explosion in our ability to self express, and our ability to get out and be heard.

He had some facts of his own on the growth of dance music. It is the fastest growing mainstream genre in online sales with a total growth of 42% in the last year, EDM is now worth about $4.5 billion globally, and that people currently spend more time listening to music than in any other time in history.

Unfortunately, they also currently spend less on buying music than any other time in history. Adell believes that because of this, the fellowship that dance music offers is the most important aspect, going back to the theme of the previous segment. More than 64% of EDM fans are planning their festival trips over a year in advance, more than double the percentage of fans of other genres.

The thing to take away from the keynote was very much that dance music is very much an experience driven industry.

Armin Van Buuren sat down next for a one-on-one with the global editor of Inthemix, Jack Tregoning. The thing to take away from that was that Armin is Busy (with a capital B). There really isn’t much to say about that.

As midday rolled around, it was time for the festival heads to sit down and candidly discuss the business of festivals. The panel consisted of Big Day Out CEO Adam Zammit, Richie McNeal of SFX/Totem, Tim Duggan as moderator, Brett Robinson director of Future Music Group, Dror Ezra from SFX/Totem, Jason Ayoubi from Future Music Group, and Simon Coffey of Q Dance.

With a huge lineup of honchos, things were bound to get heated, with some light sledging setting the pace for the discussion to come. Covering things like rising artists’ costs driving the price of ticketing, competing for the same acts and needing to ally against international agencies praying on their competitive nature. Zammit claimed ‘80% of the cost base is performers’ and all agreed and while the panel agreed the price ceiling was fast approaching there are a variety of ways festivals are driving down costs, like underage shows, expanding into Asia etc.  Zammit also named Dror’s hypothetical Israel festival ‘Groovin’ In The Jew’, and said BDO is excited about their partnership with AJ Maddah of Soundwave.

They spoke of the positive nature of new partnerships between now larger parent companies like SFX of Stereosonic and Defqon, and how this is good for the industry, obviously it means bigger festivals, but less diversity, as the little guys can no longer compete which Zammit claims ‘Is a good thing, it drives industry’. When asked if the new acquisitions will change the way the festivals is run the simple answer from Ezra was, ‘whoever owns the majority of shares in a business is irrelevant, we run our festivals our way’.

We are, however, leading the way in international festivals, with many younger festival markets like the US and Asia looking to Australia’s maturity, high standards and expertise for guidance in infrastructure.

Predictions for the coming years: Q Dance looking to expand into larger scale festivals, Future looking to expand further into Asia with more involvement from Frontier Touring, and underage festival Goodlife growing. Stereosonic are optimistic, expecting punters and DJs in the coming years to buy into shares of SFX because ‘$10 is a good deal’.

All in all it was a great morning of optimism in dance music. It’s easy to see that the scene is booming, the industry is closer than ever and times are prosperous. EMC continues today, with panels including ‘When Dance Music Becomes Big Business’, ‘The Golden Age of Australian Dance Music is Here’ and the ‘EMC Artist Panel’.