Out of the ashes of once-mighty dance music conglomerate SFX Entertainment has emerged a new, slimmer, less bankrupt contender, LiveStyle. SFX has officially emerged from its protracted bankruptcy court proceedings and has rebranded with a new CEO, Randy Phillips and a new direction.
The company just emerged from its nearly 10 month, bankruptcy proceeding on Dec. 2. It was able to restructure hundred of millions of dollars in debt through the process.
Former AEG Live executive Randy Phillips, who helped promote tours for the likes of Justin Bieber and Britney Spears, now leads it. However more importantly, he oversaw Coachella for AEG. Phillips originally signed on to steer the company through the bankruptcy process once founder and former CEO Robert Sillerman stepped down, but he has stayed on and taken the helm of LiveStyle.
LiveStyle still has many of the assets owned by SFX. This includes companies like Made Event, which puts on Electric Zoo, festivals like Mysteryland, Life In Color, digital music retailer, Beatport, which went through many changes over the past few years and Paylogic.
The name change is because SFX became a pejorative term in the industry. "Every time I said the name 'SFX' to someone, I got this negative reaction -- people would make the sign of the cross," Phillips says to Billboard.
He also says that Mysteryland will expand its genre offerings from just electronic music to be "more like Coachella." He doesn't want to go away from the dance music roots of the company however. "We're going to be a music company that specializes in electronic music," he says.
Sillerman was looking to sell the company before the bankruptcy process, but now that they have cleared that hurdle, Phillips wants to keep things together.
"We have no plans to sell anything," he says. "Now is the time to clean this up, make it function, and grow it."