Growing Under The Ibiza Sun

Not only is electronic and dance music enjoying a surge, but so it seems is the genre’s annual conference in Ibiza, Spain.

This year’s Ibiza International Music Summit at the Ibiza Grand Hotel May 26-28 was the third time it’s been staged. It attracted 498 delegates from 30 countries, which is 25 percent up on 2009 figures.

The feelgood factor continued, as 82 percent of the delegates polled felt the dance music business is in a better state than it was 12 months ago.

The good news continued as the opening report revealed that electronic music accounted for 7.5 percent of album sales in the UK and that licensed capacity of dance festivals in the U.S. now stood as high as 350,000.

Cream nightclub founder James Barton won the International Music Summit Pioneer Award, in recognition of the importance of the live sector and his services to it via his global Creamfields brand.

IMS co-founder Ben Turner believes Barton has nurtured the Cream brand for more than 15 years and earned the foothold it now has in almost every major territory.

“The huge roar in the room when his name was announced kind of says all you need to know about what his empire has done for this music worldwide,” Turner said.

Of the IMS conference itself, he said seeing huge brands and major recording labels making exclusive announcements is a huge testament to the delegation the event is attracting each year.

Turner also said the positivity coming out of IMS 2010 is hugely reflective of what is happening to electronic music around the world.