By now, all those DJs who went out to Saudi Arabia’s MDL Beast Soundstorm festival will be either heading home or about to do so. They go back knowing their bank accounts are looking particularly healthy again just days before Christmas – some of them are going to look even more pleased with themselves than normal as they tuck into their dinners this weekend.
Perhaps this is just as well. DJs these days are surrounded by people who are increasingly business savvy – they do it so that the DJs don’t have to. Now, I’m not saying every big DJ out there is missing a few brain cells, but some know nothing about business and everything about delegation.
Those smarter DJs – or the ones intelligent enough to employ smart managers – won’t have failed to notice comments from Saudi Arabia’s very own Princess Haifa bint Mohammed Al Saud. She says “We had 101 concerts in Saudi Arabia in 2019, before the pandemic. And we’re looking at increasing that number by 500, 600 percent in 2022″. Music to the ears of festival circuit DJs…
A 600% increase on 101 concerts would mean 636 gigs. Now, not all of those would be dance music gigs – but a sizeable number would be. And for the one DJ allegedly getting $500k out of appearing at MDL Beast Soundstorm at the weekend, appearing at six gigs instead of one would increase that to at least $3million.
The result of all this? That I’m probably going to have to spend 2022 talking a lot more about this subject…
Heads up to Digital Music News for this story.
