ID&T founder Duncan Stutterheim is tired of paying so much for top-flight DJs. In a recent interview with Dutch publication Quote Net, he vented his frustration about the massive growth of DJ booking fees and how it impacts him as a festival booker. He blames much of the ill on the United States market waking up to dance music and the new competition it has brought to the market.
"My public suffers. I do not pay that amount. EDM is killing the world, really," says Stutterheim "DJs should really go ask less, their fans deserve that. It's stupid of those DJs to ask so much, for so you miss a large part of your audience."
He notes the inequality in the booking fees as well and their impact on his ability to create a festival experience.
"The most popular 10% receive 90% of the pie. Of course, they make music and do it well. But it must remain in balance, which is now gone. It now is about so much money, that everything has changed. It also comes at the expense of the festival experience. At those high wages remains less over for good sound, lighting and decoration. That makes festivals less attractive."
However, if there is to be a slow deflation of the bubble, starting with DJ booking fees, who is going to be the first to take a lower cut on a consistent basis? As a DJ, where your primary source of income comes from playing live shows, getting the highest fee that the market is willing to pay you is smart business on a personal level.
But even if DJ booking fees came down due to some connected conscientiousness by DJs, would the festivals bring down their ticket prices? If they were still able to sell out, why would they charge less money? With big players like Live Nation and ID&T, who are both publicly owned, owning a growing percentage of the US festival market, lower ticket prices would seem like an unlikely byproduct of such a deal. Thus the system continues to spiral upwards until it hits a ceiling and crashes to the ground.
Stutterheim ends with a chilling lesson that the honeymoon period may be over from UK festival Global Gathering, "Well, you see, in any case all that festivals are no longer given. Global Gathering in England has called off the edition for 2015 and announced in 2016 to return without EDM. So the DJs who ask so much money, blowing their own business on. "
Note: The original article is in Dutch and the transcription were done with the closest English translation.
