The commercial value of the EDM industry seems to be high, based on initial reports from the stock market debut of SFX Entertainment. The company, which sponsors concerts and live events exclusively catering to the electronic dance music industry, made its NASDAQ debut on Wednesday.
SFX (traded as SFXE) made its initial public offering of 20 million shares, available for $13 a pop. The number available was increased from an initial proposal of 16.7 million due to high demand. The company raised $260 million, far more than the initial estimates of $175 million suggested during June when it first declared its intentions of going public.
"We view EMC (electronic music culture) as a global generational movement driven by a rapidly developing community of avid followers among the millennial generation," SFX wrote in its S-1 report to the Security and Exchange Commission. "Our mission is to enable this movement by providing our fans with the best possible live experiences, music discovery, and connectivity with other fans and events."
SFX was founded in 2011 by media entrepreneur Robert F.X. Sillerman, and was valued at 1.05 billion. The company, which already runs major electronic music festivals such as New York's Electric Zoo and Georgia's TomorrowLand, reported $268 million in revenue for 2012, although suffering a net loss of $68 million. According to its reports, it plans on spending $150 million of its IPO earnings on acquiring other concert promotion and production concerts.
According to the International Music Summit Business Report, the EDM industry as a whole is worth more than $4.5 billion dollars.
