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.
