Thursday, March 21, 2013

Tomorrowland Sensation Sold to SFX

tomorrowland sensation sold


BREAKING NEWS: On the heels of SFX buying out beatport they have reloaded and acquired two of the biggest festivals. Tomorrowland and Sensation have been sold to SFX Entertainment. Read below for details from inthemix.

it's a said day in dance music! expect ticket prices to rise at a minimum 20%

(Inthemix)Coming swiftly after the announcement that ID&T would be expanding its Tomorrowland empire to the U.S. with TomorrowWorld, the Dutch powerhouse has made a significant announcement. After much speculation, ID&T is officially becoming part of SFX Entertainment, the American company run by Robert F.X. Sillerman, who pledged to spend $1 billion on acquisitions within a year. According to an official release, the Amsterdam-based ID&T is valued at $130 million. Billboard reports that SFX has acquired 75-percent of ID&T’s entire global business at a price of approximately $97.5 million.

ID&T director Duncan Stutterheim had already struck an American joint venture with Sillerman, foreshadowing this more comprehensive move. The famed Sensation event made its entry to the New York market in October last year with backing from SFX’s competitor Live Nation. ID&T will keep Amsterdam as its ‘creative hub’, with new offices set to open in South America and Asia. As the press announcement at Miami’s Delano Hotel put it, the “creative heart of ID&T” responsible for the event and festival concepts will remain entirely in Dutch hands, remaining in Amsterdam under the name M-Design. “This next step will see us become part of a globally active company, enhancing our ability to roll out our creative concepts on a global level,” Stutterheim says. Alongside Tomorrowland, Q-dance and Sensation, three of its most globally-recognised brands, ID&T stages European institutions like Mysteryland, Welcome To The Future and ENERGY.

Sillerman has made no secret of the fact he’s a dance music outsider, but his spending spree has been honed-in on the booming EDM market. His first acquisitions, Disco Donnie Presents and Dayglow Productions, were just the beginning. The first months of 2013 saw Sillerman add Voodoo Experience and Beatport to the SFX portfolio, and now the ink has dried on the company’s biggest buyout yet.