Dror Erez talks to TMN about the SFX purchase of Totem OneLove

It’s been the worst keep secret in music industry circles, but today American dance music juggernaut SFX Entertainment announced that it has acquired the Totem OneLove Group, promoters of Stereosonic, Creamfields, Solar Music and Outrage, for a reported $75 million.

Chairman and CEO of SFX Robert Sillerman stated: “The acquisition of Totem OneLove Group is an important step as we expand into the huge Southeast Asia market. The world-class professionalism of Totem gives us the proximity, experience and platform to continue our growth strategy. Richie McNeill and Dror Erez are respected and admired by their industry peers, deservedly so, for what they have created and built.”

Totem OneLove formed in 2007, as a merger between promoter Totem Industries and Hardware Corp, and events company andrecord label OneLove Music Group. SFX now own 52 dance music festivals worldwide.

We spoke to the co-Director of Totem OneLove, Dror Erez, about the sale and how it will affect things at the company.

With this sale, what will change in the day-to-day running of things at Totem OneLove, if anything?

Nothing should change in the running of the company. We’re working with an American company, we are an Australian organisation, there’s a board we have to meet with every now and then, but other than that, nothing will change.

And now that this sale has gone through, will you be planning an expansion into Asia, or maybe more festivals in Australia?

One of the things we’ve found frustrating in the length of time that this process took, is that in a small way, it was impeding our plans moving forward,  Asia is certainly on our radar and is our next and obvious target . We are part of Australasia and are intending to increase our Stereosonic run, by incorporating asian markets to it.. Other than that, it’s hard to say what the impact will be of having companies like ID&T (TomorrowLand) and Made Events (Electric Zoo-NY) in the same stable we are, What effect will these new alliances have in this region? Time will tell. Still, it’s very exciting.

This year we’ve seen so many Australian festivals collapse. What do you think the point of difference is in the way Totem OneLove operates, and the fact you are able to make a massive profit and be so successful.

We certainly don’t take anything for granted. We’ve got  lots of years of experience, but I guess everyone else does as well. We know that nothing last forever, and so we give it our best shot always.

One thing we can say with confidence is that we are not going to collapse any time soon.But beyond that, you just have to take it like sports people say they do: a match at a time.

Do you think it will increase the range of acts you’ll have access to, being part of this global network? Will it make for easier access?

You’d like to think so, but the reality is, the acts that play for us, play every country – from Lithuania to Zimbabwe – and make a lot of money in all of them. So, trying to use buying power to guarantee acts is a nice thought but not too realistic. None of the top ten [acts] give a damn about pressure, they can go and do something else. There’s always someone else willing to pay money. I don’t think there will be a huge impact, but potentially there will be. We aren’t losing sleep over it, ether way.

What about the label?

No, they didn’t buy the label. The label is going to stay “fiercely independent” in the words of the label impresario Frank Cotela. They didn’t buy the label, and look, the label is a niche label, it’s a good, promising label and it’s getting better. Maybe one day it can become part of that stable. It won’t go away, that’s for sure – Frank will continue it as its his passion.