Live Nation's New Groove: Electronic Dance Music and Scalped Tickets

In November, the electronic dance music (EDM) concert promoter Hard Events will host a two-day Dia De Los Muertos-themed festival called Hard Day of the Dead in Los Angeles. The extravaganza will feature over 25 DJs and dance acts, including EDM heavyweights Skrillex, Calvin Harris, and Deadmau5. If you want tickets, you can buy them through Live Nation Entertainment.

Live Nation Entertainment, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010 and now has a near monopoly on U.S. concert tickets, sold 75 million tickets through Ticketmaster and hosted 22,000 of its own concerts last year, boosting its concert revenue by 11 percent. While the top-selling concerts remain big-name acts (Madonna, a Live Nation artist, pulled in $228.4 million on her 2012 tour), the fastest growing music genre is actually EDM. “Electronic music is a new and big locus for us,” Michael Rapino, Live Nation’s chief executive officer, said in May, right after Live Music purchased EDM ticket promoter Cream Holdings. He repeated his interest in EDM festivals in another conference call this week, noting that “EDM has a great global runway. This is the music of today’s youth.”