A Year in Electronic Dance Music: 2019 Trends in Music, Festivals, and Nightclubs
Written by Valerie Lee for Festival Advisor
2019 is the tail end of what many might call the Decade of Dance Music, an explosive and defining 10-year period that saw the worldwide phenomenon of electronic dance music (AKA EDM) take flight. Beginning in the early 2010s, the uprising of electronic music jumpstarted the careers of hundreds of DJs and producers as well as the nightlife and music festival industries. Today, dance music is the world’s third most popular genre of music (only behind Pop and Rock) with an estimated 1.5 billion people around the world listening and tuning in regularly, according to the annual International Music Summit Business Report. The electronic music industry is worth a lofty $7.2 billion, a number that has stabilized over recent years, showing that the genre is certainly here to stay.
This year, the electronic music genre found new, unexplored stages and innovative sounds while the industry navigated challenges and transitions. As 2019 comes to an end, we look back on some of the most impactful and defining trends and events of the year for electronic music.
EDM takes the virtual video gaming stage
At this point, it seems like a DJ has performed at iconic venues, nightclubs and even historic monuments in every country on Earth. This year, however, one artist became the first to pioneer an entirely new virtual terrain: video games. With electronic producers and DJs being some of the most tech-savvy (read: nerdy) people and oftentimes even gamers themselves, it seemed inevitable that the worlds of dance music and video gaming would eventually collide.
In February of this year, Marshmello hosted a performance inside the wildly popular online game Fortnite, which drew a record-breaking 10.7 million people to attend the virtual concert, becoming the biggest Fortnite moment in the game’s history. Keep in mind — that attendance number only accounts for the in-game views, meaning that the additional 45 million views the official recap has generated since on YouTube haven’t even been considered in that total. Many deemed the event a potentially historic show, providing a sneak preview of what virtual gaming and entertainment might look like in our not-so-distant future.
Electronic goes rock
When electronic producers were finally welcomed into pop culture, the collaborations seemed limitless. Calvin Harris shot to the top of pop with songbirds like Rihanna and Florence and the Machine, Avicii experimented with country and folk alongside Aloe Blacc, and Skrillex paired high-octane bass with the power of rappers like A$AP Rocky and Rick Ross. This year, the stars of dance music made a strong pivot towards rock music, bringing stars of the genre into their releases and reintroducing live instruments into their performances. Bass star Rezz collaborated with Underoath (her “earliest musical inspiration”), Kayzo teamed up with and brought Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low out as his special guest for his Coachella performance, and Martin Garrix put out a song with Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy — to name a few.
There are plenty of characteristics of electronic that lend themselves to aligning well with rock (read: headbanging, and high-energy breakdowns). Though 2019 certainly isn’t the first time electronic stars have rubbed shoulders with rock icons (Korn’s 2011 The Path of Totality album has producer credits from Skrillex, 12th Planet, and Excision and Skrillex worked with The Doors on “Bangarang” that same year.), in a year where genre-bending has become the norm and with a generation that seems hungry for nostalgia, it feels right to bring a little more rock spirit into the genre.
Clubs around the world are closing
Despite the permanence of DJ culture, a disheartening trend plagued nightclubs all around the world this year. It began at the tail end of last year with the announcement that Brooklyn’s outstanding venue Output would close its doors once and for all in January. With its stellar flow of underground bookings and strict no-phone policy, Output was lauded by many as one of the best clubs in America, if not the world. In the following months, more than a handful of other beloved venues have suffered the same fate. Paris’ Concrete, The Electric Pickle in Miami, Leeds’ Mint Club, The Mid in Chicago, Las Vegas’ Kaos, San Francisco venue Mezzanine, and Tottenham club The Cause all closed in 2019 alone. Though reasons vary across each of the venues and cities, a few overarching trends have contributed to the downturn in the nightclub industry: a general preference for festival culture (one ticket buy for more artists on a bigger line-up), gentrification and rising rent and housing costs, and a rising movement towards health and wellbeing.
Woodstock 50 proves it’s not all fun and games in the festival industry anymore
It might feel like there isn’t a better time to be a music fan than in 2019. Nowadays, it seems like there’s a music festival in every desirable destination around the world, and each are booking bigger and bigger artists every year. Despite a flourishing music festival industry, nothing is guaranteed — just ask the organizers of Woodstock 50, who learned that lesson the hard way this year. Intended to be an updated homage and 50 year anniversary celebration of the legendary 1969 event of the same name, organizers of Woodstock 50 bumbled through a treacherous journey of financial and legal obstacles, permit and ticketing troubles, and a lackluster line-up announcement including Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus, Imagine Dragons, and Chance The Rapper before finally announcing (and then re-announcing) the final cancellation of the show and narrowly missing another Fyre Festival fiasco. Though arguably Woodstock holds some of the strongest event name recognition in the world, it’s not enough to bank on that alone… who would’ve thought?
Ultra Music Festival shows that there’s always room for improvement
Even for serious players on the festival circuit who have navigated the complicated world of producing a world-class event, there are still plenty of lessons to be learned. Ultra Music Festival proved that sentiment to be truer than ever this year. For the first time in 18 years, the massive three-day festival were forced to move to a new venue heading into their 2019 event. City Commissioners of Miami denied the festival organizers a new agreement for Bayfront Park, their regular venue in downtown Miami, citing issues with impacted traffic and complaints about noise. Organizers of Ultra scrambled for a new location to meet their annual March dates, eventually settling on Virginia Key, a barrier island within the city limits. Though Ultra did successfully produce their festival in the new venue, the change came with a fleet of damaging issues and challenges. Complaints about the Virginia Key venue’s size began to roll in, with many claiming that walking from one side of the festival to the other took over an hour, causing fans to miss the sets of their favorite artists. In addition, a traffic issue caused by the venue’s limited road access went viral upon the closing of the first day of Ultra. The festival banned its 50,000 daily attendees to call ride shares or taxis for pick up, instead arranging shuttle services to transport them back to the main neighborhoods of Miami. However, upon the closing of the first day, shuttles and exit areas were so disorganized that hundreds of attendees ended up walking over seven miles to return to areas where cars could be called.
Following the response, Ultra organizers went into heated discussions with Miami City Commissioners and eventually prevailed, winning back access to their original venue at Bayfront Park after agreeing to compromise by eliminating one stage and reducing sound levels. Though Ultra might be a seasoned operation, each year brings new challenges for the ever-changing and evolving world of festivals, and only the dedicated will prevail in the competitive industry.
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