Sunday, the dance music community was rocked by the news of the tragic deaths of two attendees at New York’s Electric Zoo. The deaths resulted in the shutdown of the third and final day of the event under the City’s recommendation and Electric Zoo’s compliance. The repercussions of this tragedy will likely be felt across the world of electronic dance music. Notably, this tragedy comes at a particularly crucial time for one of the industry’s biggest investment group, SFX Entertainment.
Headed by Robert Sillerman, the group aims to capitalize on the rapid growth of electronic dance music or electronic music culture as they so aptly called it. The group has already filed a $175 million IPO (initial public offering) to go public. SFX Entertainment are already majority owners of Beatport, Disco Donnie Presents, Life in Color and MMG Nightlife, SFX is planning to acquire Totem, ID&T and Made Event, the promoters of Electric Zoo. Under the terms of the planned purchase of Made Event, SFX will acquire 70% of the company for $35 million and will be required to buy the remaining 30% in 2018. 
The deaths at Electric Zoo will undoubtedly cause SFX Entertainment to take a large financial hit. Companies that want their brand associated with these events are sure to become scarce. Advertising plays a massive role in the production of these events, especially the large scale ones. With SFX looking to go public next week, this tragedy will likely cause investors to be wary. SFX believes they are “the largest producer of live events and entertainment content focused exclusively on the electronic music culture (“EMC”), based on attendance and revenue.” A big financial hit to this investment group could very well change the course of electronic dance music. Ambivalent advertisers and nervous investors are a very dangerous concoction for SFX Entertainment and, in turn, electronic dance music as a whole.
Not only will this take a toll on SFX but also likely the rest of the electronic music business world as well. This tragedy will cause far-reaching consequences for both the big and small companies. Resources could become possibly scarce. For smaller organizations this could mean being forced to sell to bigger, more respected (by advertisers and investors) and more established companies.
Lastly, I just want to say that I don’t mean to, in any way, look past the fact that two people lost their lives. I just feel that it is important the electronic dance music community understands the consequences of this tragedy on a larger scale.
the moral of the story is- stop being so fucking rachet with your molly binge. if you MUST take amphetamines at events, at least buy them from someone you know personally, and buy a frickin testing kit before you ingest any. it’s a tiny price to pay to save your life.
At the end of the day maybe the right amount of sponsors and corporations will be scared away for the genre to return to the fans, the talent, and the music.
Moral of the story: Don’t take drugs.
This is really starting to get to be a tempest in a teapot. Yes, two people died. Two, not 2000, 2. People have died at festivals, parties, concerts, even sporting events. People die – it’s one of the only guarantees in life.
This whole “sky is falling” thing is getting out of hand. Yes, it’s a tragedy, yes we need to do better to prevent things like this from happening, but it’s not the first time, not the worst instance, and sure as heck won’t be the last. Probably won’t even be the last this year.
Let’s all take a deep breath and step away from the fainting couch and let go of the pearls.
I just don’t think it’ll be as huge of an economic blow and this article says..the market for “EMC” is and always will be huge, regardless of a handful of people dying over a one week time frame. I personally haven’t ever thought to myself,”wow, a girl died because she ingested something that she had no idea what it was, I’M NEVER GOING TO AN EDM EVENT EVER AGAIN! 111~” People die all the time and unless its at a large scale, it typically doesn’t effect the economy.
Yeah this guy is pandering and sensationalizing for page views. Its possible that tragedies have affected IPOs before but there are also many that went on with far greater controversy surrounding one or more of the companies involved. He also doesn’t mention that the companies he is writing about have dealt with complicated social and legal issues for decades. In the second to last paragraph he writes “Resources could become possibly scarce.” but that’s not actually saying profound. Advertising dollars shift all the time for temporary social issues (see Tiger Woods) but the EDM industry isn’t dependent on Ad revenue they are dependent on ticket sales. So when you look at the fact that concert goers were refunded their money, a short term loss willingly taken, to ensure the customer experience they will not lose their dedicated fan base. EDM will continue moving along just find and this guy is page view prostitute.
Two people die and sponsors pull out. Thousands die each year (in the US) from drunk driving and no one bats an eye. Makes sense. I’m not one to empathize for people who make bad decisions. If they got bad product its one thing. These were overdoses and its as if we are making the martyrs. We don’t close clubs because someone is to drunk to drive and the do it anyway and kill a van full of kids.
This is way out of hand and in my opinion how are we going from artist talking about all the “shit music that is coming out” to “oh drugs are bad umkay”?
Get off your fucking high horses. This is nothing new. most artist that even have had something to say are playing at events overseas which drugs of this nature have been a factor of for decades. You all have nothing new to say so get back to your straight beat shit. Unless you do have something informative to say make sure that its something that you can educate this new generation of festival goers and music producers can learn from. Tell them something they haven’t heard before. Show them something new. Prices are going up not to “take preventative” measures. That’s what they will tell you. Select few know that EDM has a small group in actuality of fans that don’t care what’s on the radio and will pay an arm and an leg to go to these shows. Sadly though promoters, venues, agents, ect know this. They also know we will pay what they want.
Honestly, let SFX drown in their greed. Acquiring all these unique entities is allowing them to take the prices higher as they combine their efforts with AXS, LiveNation, AEG, and Ticketmaster. Give the corp-rats the finger and take back your money, music, and culture.