SFX Shopping Spree

Robert Sillerman’s SFX Entertainment is moving full-steam ahead on plans to dive back into the concert game with a slew of additions to the company’s portfolio.

Acquisitions include New Orleans’ Voodoo Experience, Dutch dance promoter ID&T, Hangout Music Festival producer Huka Entertainment and two Miami Beach nightclub operators – Opium Group and Miami Marketing Group, a spokesman for SFX confirmed to Pollstar.

Though Sillerman pledged last year to invest about $1 billion in electronic dance music and companies that stage EDM events, his new deals aren’t exclusively linked to what’s quickly becoming the genre du jour for the concert industry.

Voodoo Experience consistently features varied acts, EDM included, alongside artists that reflect the culture of The Big Easy. Hangout, which is still owned by festival founder Shaul Zislin, follows suit with an eclectic, rock-leaning lineup.

ID&T may be the most EDM-heavy of SFX’s new deals. The company organizes massive European dance events such as Sensation and the Tomorrowland Festival and recently debuted the Sensation brand Stateside at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Through the Opium Group and MMG agreements, Sillerman now has his hands in Miami nightclubs including Mansion,  Set, Mokai, Cameo, Opium, LIV, Story, and Arkadia.

SFX expects to announce several additional acquisitions in the coming days, but time will tell whether any of the announcements will include Electric Daisy Carnival promoter Insomniac Events.

Insomniac and fellow EDM promoter Hard Events were being courted by Sillerman as early as last April and Hard Events was snatched up just a few months later by Live Nation, which also owns the U.K.’s Cream Holdings.

With Insomniac still potentially up for grabs, sources reportedly close to the matter recently told the New York Times the promoter continues to draw interest from Sillerman, who now faces competition from LN, AEG Live and Red Light Entertainment.

Insomniac is being valued between $70 million and $100 million, the Times reported, and the suitors are looking to purchase 50 to 100 percent of the company. Whether a deal will actually transpire remains debatable. Insomniac head Pasquale Rotella told Pollstar in September he appreciated the growth in the sector, but hadn’t made any decisions on selling the company or long-term partnerships.

“There have been upswings like this before and people who have not been part of the culture, who have not been in the trenches to make dance music what it is, are jumping in,” Rotella said.  “So we’ll see how it pans out over time. But, yeah, I’ve talked to a lot of these guys. They just want to do well. They’re businessmen and want to have success, and they see this as something with potential.”