Study: North American’s EDM sector worth $1.9 billion

North America’s Electronic Dance Music sector is worth US$1.9 billion, estimates a new report delivered at the IMS Engage conference in Hollywood. That would make it represent 30% of the global EDM market of $6.2 billion.

The report, authored by Kevin Watson of Danceonomics, includes revenue drawn from record sales ($800 million), streaming and video services ($600 million), DJ hardware and software ($360 million), as well as from festivals and social media platforms.

Dance track sales are at a record 4.6%. EDM is fourth most streamed in the United States, at 7%, following R&B/hip-hop (29%), rock (25%) and pop (21%). EDM represents 10% of all Canadian streams. Consumers listen to over 12 billion dance/electronic streams in North America in 2014.

EDM’s share of digital tracks is 4.6%, with New York and Boston two biggest cities for downloads.

Superstar DJs make their best money in North America, even if they don’t live there. Calvin Harris is the top earner on $66 million, followed by David Guetta ($30 million), Avicci ($28 million) and Tiësto ($28 million) with one-time punk rock musician Steve Aoki the highest earning American DJ at $23 million.

In the DJ Mag Top 100 Clubs 2015, over 20% of venues are in North America, with Vegas leading the way with eight of the Top 10 clubs. The 12th largest EDM clubs in the US generated half a billion dollars in revenue.

From a ticketing agency source, Watson maintains that a quarter of nightlife tickets sold in the US are for Electronic Music events. Each raver spends an average of $81 a night. EDM fans go out at least twice a week. They are 13% more likely than average to attend a festival.

The capacity for US dance festivals is 1.4 million. The country hosts some of the biggest festivals in the world such as Ultra (330,000), EDC (300,000), UMF (165,000), Villa Paradizo (100,000) and Monster Massive (60,000).

The North American EDM explosion is similar to the way in the ‘60s when British bands sold the blues back to American kids. House was from Chicago, techno from Detroit and garage from New York. Yet it had to become a phenomenon through the world first before being hip at home.

Tiësto remembered in Esquire magazine that in 2002, he, Carl Cox and Digweed could together draw a crowd of 50,000 anywhere in the world. But “in the US, we were in a small tent. Maybe 1,500 people. It was insane.”

Less than nine years later, in Las Vegas, the Electric Daisy Carnival was drawing 230,000 raveheads, and the huge casinos had virtually dumped the old-style Vegas show for DJ sets paying them $300,000 a show. The top DJs now draw 8,000 to 10,000 paying customers a night. One-time rock stations are turning to 100% EDM formats. Daft Punk’s game changing Get Lucky sold 3.5 million copies in America and was streamed 100 million times.