Acquisition of Dutch Promoter ID&T Is the Latest Step in Robert F.X. Sillerman’s Strategy to Become an Electronic Music Powerhouse
Robert F.X. Sillerman is betting heavily that EDM is more than a passing fancy. According to the
N.Y. Times, Sillerman’s
SFX Entertainment will announce today that it has bought 75% of
ID&T, a Dutch festival promoter, for $102 million in cash and stock, which values the company at $136 million. Perhaps the biggest EDM deal yet, the acquisition will give SFX a major foothold on the global festival circuit as it tries to build a $1 billion media empire centered on dance.
ID&T puts on the annual
Tomorrowland festival in Belgium, which last year drew 180k people, as well as
Sensation, an indoor event held in 20 countries. ID&T had already formed a joint venture with SFX to bring a festival to North America, and on Wednesday the two companies revealed the details of that partnership:
TomorrowWorld, an event for 150k people to be held in Chattahoochee Hills, GA, Sept. 27-29. The name change was prompted by the fact that Disney owns the name Tomorrowland in the U.S.
“We are aligned with a festival operator who has been doing this for 20 years and has helped define quality and a great experience for fans,” Sillerman said in an interview with Times media reporter
Ben Sisario. “It also gives us the global footprint to begin creating the worldwide community of dance fans.”
Sillerman, who corporatized the concert industry in the 1990s through a previous incarnation of SFX, revived the company last year to capitalize on the rise of EDM. So far, SFX has bought a string of Miami nightclubs and several festival and live-event companies. But its acquisition spree took off recently when it paid
$50 million for Beatport, a download store that Sillerman wants to use as a hub to connect the disparate global dance audience, and therefore and attract addollars from major brands. Earlier this week, SFX also announced an investment from the advertising giant
WPP that has been
estimated at $10 million.
Stutterheim said in an interview that SFX’s resources would help his festival franchises expand quickly around the world. This year, ID&T events will take place in Brazil, South Africa and perhaps in Kenya, and company co-founder
Duncan Stutterheim said he was looking at various spots in Asia.
“I believe in this story, that this will build into a new worldwide electronic company,” he said of SFX. “This is a really big step, and we could never do it ourselves.”
Last year, ID&T brought its
Sensation event to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in cooperation with
Live Nation—the concert giant that began life as SFX. But the SFX/ ID&T deal is a sign that corporate allegiances are being drawn at the top levels of the festival market. Live Nation, which has been building its own dance empire, is said to be in the advanced stages of takeover talks with
Insomniac, the promoter behind the
Electronic Daisy Carnival.
“There was hesitation in the beginning, of course,” he said. “But for me the big change was when the agents came in with the big DJs, the big, top-dollar stars that changed the game. Now it’s just the professional entertainment industry. I’m seeing possibilities, and I don’t have any hesitance now. That’s the way it’s going, so, OK, let’s go that way.”