Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Beatport sold



Robert Sillerman, the original creator of live nation, has upped his anti on his proclamation, last year, to invest 1 billion dollars into Electronic Dance Music. Yesterday he inked a deal for his company SFC Entertainment to acquire Electronic Music Superstore Beatport. For those unfamiliar with Beatport.com, it is a music download site that exclusively features electronic music. Beatport sold for a reported 50 million dollars, although unconfirmed, and adds Beatport to Sillerman’s growing EDM enterprise.

According to sources, Beatport amassed 15-18 million in revenue last year through exclusive music releases and its ability to cash in on an underserved niche by itunes. Despite these good fortunes the site still turned an unreported loss of $2 million.

Sillerman now owns Life in Color (formerly Day Glow) and Disco Donnie Presents. In addition to Beatport Sold to Sillerman, SFX has also procured Voodoo Experience and ID&T, the largest dance event promoter in the world. Despite this frenzy of purchasing Sillerman still thirsty to add more to his empire and certainly has money left in the bank as the aforementioned purchases haven’t come close to the 1 billion in purchases he promised.

The move to join SFX could help Beatport expand into live events as well as garner international success exclaimed Beatport head Matthew Adell.

EDMBoston certainly agrees with the Beatport head on Beatport Sold. If you examine the company’s purchased by Sillerman’s SFX Entertainment, they are purchasing an infrastructure base to make serious moves in electronic music. Acquisitions of two of the largest promotion companys give SFX an instant pathway to reach customers. Couple this with ownership of the premier source for fans to purchase electronic music and an established concert tour that reaches the mainstream and Sillerman has instant access to start generating money from electronic music instantly. He has contact with fans in every aspect and stage of the fan experience, except one thing. Sillerman’s SFX has failed to purchase a community and a blog.

The essential vitamin that makes electronic music what it is, is community. No matter how much money Sillerman dumps into electronic music he will never be able to be successful unless he wins over the fans. Life in Color isn’t building a community, but rather providing people with a onetime cheap imitation EDM experience. Long time electronic fans know this and new fans that take to the music move on from those types of events. This insincerity, capitalization, and failure to cement roots with fans will never create the lasting success of an Electric Daisy Carnival or Tomorrowland. If Sillerman is unable to generate events of this magnitude with long running success he’s headed for massive financial losses.

Comment Below NOW: Do you want Sillerman to fail or succeed after Beatport Sold out?