It’s an industry worth more than seven billion dollars annually.
Electronic dance music or EDM has exploded onto the world stage and there isn’t anything
bigger than Tomorrowland.
The world’s most important and valuable DJs perform in front of 180,000 people.
5 time world’s best DJ, Armin van Buuren sees it as a revolution.
“It’s not just a festival, it’s a cultural movement, it’s the same thing, but in a
completely different way to what happened in the 60s. There’s a whole generation of
young people growing up, listening to dance music. These are our future presidents, our
future CEOs, our future lawyers, the future people that run this country or the countries
around the world they are here now at Tomorrowland.”
Others like David Guetta say EDM is even more mainstream today than something like rock
or even R&B.
“It was that moment that jump, between something, we were a little bit of the underdogs of music
and then all of a second, we are like king of the world, it was crazy.”
Electronic music had three of the top five spots on Spotify’s most played at the end
of July 2016.
It’s this collaboration between pop and EDM says Guetta that has led to its metoric
rise.
“The thing is that, when I started to do this, I was playing house music and pop was
kind of the enemy you know, and I was like why, if they’re talented, they’re talented,
we can make music that crossing over the different genres.”
Up and coming Djs also see the importance of collaborations in order to reach the biggest
audience.
“I’m really open for collaborations with big artists, but also with smaller artists
and young people that are really inspiring and creating something new right now. I'm just always
thinking about, think outside of the box and maybe work with a rock band or maybe work with a hip hop artist or
I don’t know, a techno DJ.
And with the help of technology, anyone can become a producer with the help of a laptop.
One DJ from Belgium offered this advice.
“I think now a days because it become that easy to become DJ and an artist, it is important
to find and define your own sound and I’m working on that right now just to make something
my own a bit more. But besides that it’s building an image , networking and it is a lot more
than just making music."
But for people who have been in the business for a long time like Armin Van Buuren, the
rush of newcomers to EDM is something he couldn’t have predicted.
“I could honestly, I could brag and I could say, we all saw this coming, but we didn’t.
We never expected a daytime radio, mainstream day time radio would pick up dance music tracks.
Dance music has like an oil stain spread out through all genres of music, pop music, R&B,
every genre, you’re looking at dance music because it’s very effective.”
When the three day Tomorrowland festival opened its doors, it meant a huge boost to Belgium’s
economy.
Especially its tourism economy which has suffered since the terror attacks earlier this year.
It’s estimated that more than $100 million is pumped into the economy from this festival
alone.
“It’s quite important because we’ve got 19,000 people that take a global journey
package which means they’ll come to Belgium by plane, by train, by bus and stay in hotels
and if you see in Brussels or Antwerp, all the hotels are fully booked this weekend.
We also have now 8000 people working at the festival, 400 artists coming here with their
friends so it is very good for the region, is good for Antwerp, It’s good for Belgium,
it’s good for all those people here experiencing Belgium."
The weekend saw the 180,000 tickets sell out in less than 30 minutes — record time for
the festival.
Of the 180,000 visitors over the three days, there were 200 countries represented and 38,000
people camped out in their own makeshift town, Dreamville.
The festival currently operates in two other continents, South America and North America,
but the Asian market is one of the fastest growing areas for EDM.
Could Tomorrowland be heading to the Far East?
“We know that there is a lot of interest in Asia and you can also see that at the festival,
but for the moment, we have to concentrate on the three festivals we have right now.”
So if you’re a virgin to the world of electronic music, what about you?
“If you don’t know much about dance music right, you just tuned into this station and
you’re like what’s this dance music thing all about, it’s a lot of young people dancing
to the same beat, I mean what is this? All I have to say to these people is look at what
happened in the 60s. Your parents didn’t understand anything that happened with the
Beatles or the Rolling Stones. It’s the same thing, it’s a similar thing, I see
so much similarities.
Phil Han, CNBC at Tomorrowland.