There's Still A Lot of Money to Be Made in Dance Music, Report Says

Today began the tenth International Music Summit (IMS), where electronic music industry folk gather on its home base of Ibiza to talk the state of the business. To kick off the weekend conference, strategy and insight specialist Kevin Watson of Danceonomics shared his annual IMS Business Report, which reveals that despite any talks of slowing down, the industry is still growing. Here are some chief findings and interesting observations we gleaned from the report:

Electronic artists, put your music on streaming services pronto

According to the report, the number of paid subscribers to music streaming services grew a staggering 65 percent in 2016, from 68 million to 112 million. The report also found that electronic music generates 12 billion streams per month on Spotify. In the US, dance music's share of total audio consumption grew from 3.4 percent in 2015 to 4 percent in 2016, with 57 percent of total "sales" from streaming—the highest of any genre in the country.

Latin American market is growing

Though the US and Europe lead in global electronic music streams, Mexico and Brazil are in the top ten at No. 4 and 7, respectively. Overall, Latin America has shown the highest regional music sales growth with total revenue up by 24 percent. On the live events side, the region has become an emerging hot spot with brands such as Ultra, EDC, and Tomorrowland holding festivals in Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil.

Social media is still a major key

EDM fans have been shown to be the most social group out of all music fans, so an Internet presence is crucial for artists. Of all the platforms to be posting on, Instagram is the most important. Looking back on the past three months, the report indicates that the most popular artists have seen the most growth of their online fanbases on Instagram; its growth rate is shown to be 11 times that of Facebook's. Another interesting observation: The Chainsmokers are adding 28 thousand social media followers daily… guess people really do want to get "closer" to the duo. Better start working on those #selfies.

Gender diversity is still a #festivalproblem

The business report gave THUMP a shout-out by referring to its study last year on gender diversity at music festivals. Of 24 festivals in 2016, only 17 percent of performers were women. The highest booking percentage went to Berlin's CTM Festival (45 percent), and the lowest to California's Beyond Wonderland (3.2 percent). Recently, THUMP teamed up with Smirnoff in an effort to double the number of female headliners at festivals over the next three years.

Festivals are bigger than ever

That a lot of people go to music festivals these days isn't exactly groundbreaking, but a comparison of the number of attendees at the three biggest dance-music events (Tomorrowland, EDC LA/Las Vegas, and Ultra) in 2008 and now reveals just how much the festival industry has grown. In 2008, attendees of the big three totaled 185 thousand people. This year, it's 925 thousand—an increase of 500 percent.

Overall, the industry is still growing, but highest-paid DJs are making less money

According to the report, Forbes reports show that earnings for the top 12 highest-paid DJs (including No. 1–3 Calvin Harris, Tiësto, and David Guetta) fell by 1 percent in 2016 from $304 million to $300 million. Despite this, the global electronic music industry's value is up 3 percent, increasing to $7.4 billion from last year's $7.1 billion. This value takes into account aforementioned factors such as streaming, social media, and live events, all of which showed an uptick.