The Dance Music Industry Took A Big Hit From The Pandemic
As you’ve probably experienced, the pandemic did not treat every music genre equally. While many thrived as a result of the lockdown, the dance music industry took a huge hit in revenue. The total global revenue was cut in half, which means that the industry is now at the same point it was 10 years ago, according to the annual IMS Business Report.
This is understandable since dance music relies so much on live music and festivals, which were virtually eliminated by the pandemic in 2020. As a result, the industry’s contribution to the bottom line of the entire revenue model in the U.S. decreased last year, going from about 4% of the total to 3.6%.
Festivals and DJs lost a huge part of their value last year, dropping to 78% of their value. The good news is that most everyone sees this as only a temporary situation.
There Is Some Good News
There was some good news though. Vinyl sales in the genre were up 24%, and downloads from Beatport were up 33% last year. Keep in mind that downloads overall are dropping like a rock, being down another 16% last year.
NFT’s were a big deal in the electronic music community last year and worth about $50 million in revenue. In fact, 76% of all music NFTs were from this part of the business. There was also a lot of advancement on social media from most electronic artists as Facebook and YouTube engagements and views were way up over the previous year. That said, the genre didn’t do as well here as pop, hip-hop, K-pop, Latin & Caribbean, R&B, and Rock and Country.
Another thing that the report pointed out was that hip-hop became much more popular than dance music over the last few years, but that its popularity seems to have plateaued in 2020.
The Bottom Line
After peaking about three years ago, the popularity of the dance music industry was falling off even before the pandemic. That doesn’t mean that it will fade into obscurity. No, there will always be a thriving culture around the music that will keep the scene healthy. Don’t expect it to grow much or have as much influence on pop music as it once did however. Already we’re beginning to see a change there back to more traditional song forms and instrumentation. Even a return of rock influences (thanks, Olivia Rodrigo). You can count that there will always be a thriving dance scene though.
[Image by Philipp Ruch from Pixabay]