Data Transmission At ADE

Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) has cemented itself as one of the premier events on the global dance calendar – both for the clubbers who descend for the hundreds of parties and events that happen across the city during the week, as well as for the conference aspect that draws in the industry from all over the world. This year ADE was bigger and better attended than ever, and Data Transmission was there to report on some of the key discussions during the week.

“We finalized the deal an hour ago. Instead of the previous 75-percent, ID&T is now going to be 100-percent owned by SFX. Now it’s very clear, I work for SFX”.

These words were spoken to a packed conference room on the Thursday afternoon of Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE) late last month, by ID&T CEO and co-founder Duncan Stutterheim, where he revealed that full ownership of his leading Dutch events company had been passed over to the American SFX powerhouse.

The occasion was a Q&A between Stutterheim, and SFX head of acquisitions Shelly Finkel, who revealed last year that his company would be making a $1 billion investment into the dance music sector, in the wake of its explosion in popularity in the US. With this kind of industry star power on hand, the room was predictably packed to the rafters. However, it was also a good indication of the sort of big business and deals that were going down at ADE this year.

For many, the draw of ADE is limited to the simply amazing number of parties happening during the week, with 300 events across more than 100 different clubs and venues, from modest club nights to spectacular Awakenings techno parties at Gashouder, a 10,000+ capacity venue that hosted an unprecedented five-night run of sell-out events. No less than 300,000 people converged on Amsterdam for ADE this year, from around both Holland and the rest of the world.

It’s one of the essential occasions on the global clubbing calendar; though it’s all built from the ground up around the industry component of the conference, which this year drew 5,000 industry professionals to Amsterdam, as well as an additional 2,000+ DJs and artists. Every corner of the industry was present; booking agents, promoters, publicists, record label owners, up-and-comers hustling for a record deal… You name it; they’re all at ADE.  

It was a record-breaking year for ADE, with the conference sprawling across five different hotels. The central meeting place though was the Felix Meretis, with thousands gathering in the meeting rooms, bars, foyer and spilling out across the canals outside. The Felix was also the location for many of the conference’s key panels, roundtables and keynote interviews, where some of the industry’s biggest players got together to talk the big issues of 2013

EDM’s great goldrush

Whilst SFX’s full acquisition of ID&T might have been he big news of the panel, Finkel also had a lot more to say about the potential for synergy between the ever-growing list of companies joining his EDM empire. So far these include Beatport, the Australian events company behind the Stereosonic festival tour, and a raft of US promoters that includes Disco Donnie Presents, Dayglow Productions and Life In Colour; and shortly after the conference it was announced SFX had also acquired Made Event, the company behind the Electric Zoo series of events.

“We want to offer partnerships, for us it doesn’t stop at offering sponsorships,” said Finkel. He hinted at future synergy opportunities for the SFX empire, offering an example of a new digital strategy that will see Beatport extended as a digital content platform. Stutterheim also indicated ID&T will be working closely with the other events companies that are part of the SFX empire, and that he’d helped bring America’s Life In Colour events to Europe this year.

“When SFX acquires your company you can be part of the ticketing company, Beatport, our design company and our infinity program,” said Finkel. “SFX is the one place to get everything. We offer the full package, whether it comes to touring or breaking a new artist”.

Stutterheim’s attitude this time around was markedly different to last year’s ADE, when he’d been coy about selling to investors. “‘We used to joke to each that we would sell the company for a hundred – a hundred thousand guilders. Then, suddenly someone from America wanted to give us a hundred. A hundred million dollars. The choice was very difficult. But we didn’t do it. I think that this company can continue for another twenty years, that we may go into the world.”

This year though, Stutterheim shared a few details about how he was convinced to join SFX. “We had worked together in the US,” he said. “But at that point we really believed that we wanted to be a Dutch company creating shows, and we believed we had a strong market across a number of countries…but sometimes the idea needs to incubate.”

“As we continued to work together, at some point a list came up of the possibilities of what could be done if we sold the company. TomorrowWorld [the US spinoff of Belgium’s hugely successful Tomorrowland event] was an example of that; the festival cost 16 million dollars to put up. Those are amounts of money that we just don’t have. We are a big company, but we can’t invest that kind of money. So it was an opportunity for the company to grow.”

Corporate synergies aside, Finkel also took the chance to take a dig at what’s possibly the biggest, and slowest moving target in American dance music: Las Vegas, and how much the casinos are playing DJs to perform in the extravagant clubs they’ve been opening. 

“A little disappointing is Las Vegas”, said Finkel. “They are paying artists a lot of money because they receive their income in ways we don’t. Their business model is different because they also gain income out of their hotels and casinos, money that is being invested in the EDM scene by paying the DJs twice or three times as much compared to SFX.’ 

However, he said he doesn’t see any major market destabilization in its wake. “Artists come to me and say: ‘I will play in Vegas to make money, I will play at your events for the fans’.”

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