#ims 2023

For this 14th edition of the Summit, the theme was ‘Face the Future’. Co-hosted by BBC Radio 1 broadcasters Pete Tong MBE and Jaguar, topics scheduled included debates and discussions of the complexities of AI, the next steps for music and Web3, diversity and inclusion, the impact of ageism in electronic music, music rights management, understanding neurodiversity, the ever-changing dynamic between agents and promoters, an analysis of music journalism, plus the presentation of the much anticipated IMS Business Report. Alongside this were plenty of interviews with artists and players in the industry plus opportunities for showcasing products and services and networking.

IMS co-founder and lead curator Ben Turner stated: “In 2023, we no longer have the luxury of speculating about the future: AI has fully arrived, and things will move fast from this point forward. In our industry's first full year back to business after COVID, we're presented with a dizzying array of new products, problems, and possibilities. Artists finally returning to touring do so amongst a huge generational shift and soaring production and travel costs whilst attempting to navigate the increasingly complex environmental issues surrounding live music. As a tidal wave of AI-generated content sweeps in, some welcome a new era of creative possibilities, while others lament the loss of another aspect of humanity in music, all while a cornucopia of unanswered questions are created concerning the control of rights. It's time for us to collectively ‘Face the Future’.”

Making good use of the vastness and diversity of the space at the Destino Pacha Resort, different areas were created for Summit sessions, networking and of course DJ sets and parties. There were 2 Summit stages, one indoor and one outdoor. Basement club ‘Tox’ became home to the educational focus that is IMS College, there was a Tech Zone, a YouTube Lounge for presentations and networking, the Party Suite (presented by Party Degenerates), the Deezer Suite, a Garden Suite and Beatport Base housed in 2 of the villas, plus meeting rooms and an outdoor DJ booth, where DJs played throughout.

The Art of Areté space offered daily programming supporting mental health and wellness that included meditation, breathwork, yoga, sound healing, sunset walks, and keynote artist interviews. 

With a huge, parallel programme over the 3 days, it is impossible to attend, let alone summarise, all of the sessions and activities, so here are some highlights of things that interested me and a brief snapshot of The Summit from my point of view.

Day 1 of the Summit began at 12.00, with brief introductions from co-hosts BBC Radio 1 broadcasters Pete Tong and Jaguar, and IMS founding partners.

The first session is always the unveiling of The IMS Business Report which was presented by Mark Mulligan, (MD & Analyst, MIDiA Research).

The brief was to look at how the global electronic music business now stands in terms of its value, after the first full year back to business since the pandemic. As well as highlighting the changes and the emerging trends, it provides evidence of the importance of the global dance music industry, which is currently valued at 11.3 billion dollars annually, 16% higher than pre-pandemic, with 34% growth in 2022, showing a strong recovery year for the dance music sector and also the entire music industry.

Interesting takeaways from the report:

Ibiza’s clubs emerged post-pandemic with more demand, more nights and more revenue than before. Ibiza club ticketing revenue reached €124 million in 2022, up 55% from the €80 million registered in 2019 This was underpinned by increases in the number of events per venue, average ticket prices, and the total number of tickets sold going from 2 million in 2019 to 2.5 million in 2022.

TikTok has fast become the central place for fan engagement and electronic music plays a big role there.

Live: 2022 was a big year overall for the live industry – the top 100 global tours saw revenue up 276% (Pollstar); Live Nation’s revenues were up 166%; and bookings for the top 100 DJs increased by 314% in 2022 (Viberate). Dance music live revenues were up 65% on 2021, reaching $4.1 billion, which is still slightly below the 2019 total of $4.4 billion and actually represents a significant decline in industry share. So more growth to be unlocked.

Recorded and publishing: Combined revenues were up by 13%, reaching $1.9 billion. Dance music largely grew in line with the wider markets, but slightly increased share.

Production music and hardware: Including studio and DJ equipment, electronic music instruments, software, sounds/samples, and skills sharing/analysis, this crucial sector was up by 7%, reaching $2.8 billion. This growth was broadly in line with the total market.

Key conclusions:

Finally, the dance music industry has shaken off the effects of the pandemic, coming out the other side, bigger, better, stronger and more relevant than ever.

The pandemic shone a harsh light on the industry’s heavy-reliance on live. Now, that reliance is even higher because of live’s huge growth.

There are two key differences from 2019: 1) a resurgent creator tools sector; and 2) a music publishing business that is finally beginning to find its share.

The future is bright, with the rise of creator culture, bringing ever more people into dance music, both as fans and creators, with the creator-fan set to be at the centre of tomorrow’s dance music world.

If you want to see the detail about where the big changes and growth areas are, the full IMS Business Report can be downloaded from here (it’s 35 pages long but it’s an interesting read with lots of graphs to illustrate everything): https://mcusercontent.com/77ec3e3fadbb08e9f7ddbfb93/files/c759b1ce-0ef9-04eb-18de-b5d8af073181/MIDiA_IMS_Business_Report.pdf

This was followed by a Keynote Interview with Max Lousada, CEO of Recorded Music at Warner Music Group, interviewed by Pete Tong.

He was also the first CEO of a major label to speak at IMS and spoke about his background in the industry and some of the current challenges his company and the industry faces. As well as talking about the potential of tapping into new global markets, as big populations come online, such as in Asia and Africa, he talked a lot about how artists and their label can use social media, particularly TikTok to create what he called “memorable moments” that will provide fans with an emotional and personal connection to an artist, leading to loyalty and therefore repeat sales of music, tickets, merchandising and so on.

Interesting takeaways:

Artists need to love to create and be passionate about their music-making and also be concerned about their fans.

TikTok - artists’ use of TikTok is important but not critical, but it’s a great accelerant to their popularity.

Role of radio - not important for breaking an artist, but it’s useful for elongating acts and it drives ticket sales. It’s good for promotion.

AI - when asked about whether he was excited or fearful of AI he said that some of the challenges are how we protect artists (copyright, legislation), visualising output and issues of creativity (humans) v technology. He thinks that the best creatives working with AI will probably create the best output, but we’ll have to watch and understand what it will become and it will be important to protect rights, likeness and voice.

After that very business-focused session, I went to explore the venue and hung out in the IMS Garden Suite for a while. Housed in one of the stand-alone villas in the complex (complete with private pool and a Dalt Vila view, the Garden Suite was provided by Brian Eno’s EarthPercent charity, which aims to unleash the power of music in service of the planet. In the garden of the villa, it’s a social area for delegates to connect, discuss and learn more about the intersectionality of music and climate, with discussions and live DJs. With lots of low Moroccan-style tables and floor cushions under a shady canopy, grass, and views of the sea and across to Dalt Vila, it was a welcome relaxing oasis from the hustle and bustle of the main areas of the venue.

Day 1 ended with networking over complimentary poolside drinks and canapés, hosted by Ultra Records, which gave people a chance to meet and chat about the day’s proceedings and enjoy a drink in the sunshine and look out over the resort and the view across to the port and Dalt Vila.

Day 2 began for me with a debate on ‘Understanding the unstoppable: AI and music unravelled - the potential, the threats, the future’. AI is currently a hot topic in many disciplines, and is possibly the most important IMS discussion in 2023, as AI is everywhere in our sights, and is beginning to be integrated into our culture. With an introduction from Jean-Charles Carré (Artist Management, Co-founder, What a Music Ltd and David Guetta’s co-manager), the debate was moderated by Declan McGlynn (Music Technology Journalist, Consultant), joined by Daouda Leonard (CEO & Co-Founder, Create Safe), Edward Balassanian (Founder/CEO, Aimi), Jay Ahern (Director of Music Industry Relations, Cyanite.ai), Meng Ru Kuok (CEO & Co-founder, BandLab Technologies) and Tatiana Cirisano (Analyst, MIDiA Research). It was widely felt that artists should be able to opt in or opt out of being incorporated into AI content. Discussion ensued about the recent AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd song ‘Heart On My Sleeve’ created by @ghostwriter that went viral. The response was that there’s a need to establish codes of conduct and that it’s early days for all this. The novelty of these AI-generated tunes will probably wear off and that AI might become a dirty word quite quickly.

Interesting takeaways:

AI will replace samples.

Intellectual property is a big issue.

AI might encourage artists to be more distinctive - differentiation for artists is the problem now, not distribution - they’re competing for recognition.

AI is not good at music creation - humans are much better.

The world needs access to more people that can create - billions of people around the world don’t have access to be able to create their own music - they don’t have access to the necessary technology.

What happens when the floodgates open and there are hundreds and thousands of tracks uploaded to Spotify every day? How will platforms like Spotify deal with all this content being created? “Curation is going to become the big buzz word.”

The way we find music is super important.

AI is a way of making cheap music.

Will you be able to create mistakes when you’re creating music - some of my best moments happen when something went wrong in the studio - will AI learn to do that?

In terms of licensing, artists should be able to opt in or out.

Curation leads to discovery and then revenue for artists and labels.

Generative AI is a new medium.

There’s a need for analytical AI to filter out the AI generated music.

There were differences in opinions on the future of AI, with one saying that these small evolutions happen all the time in the music industry, and that AI will probably come and go like most of them, whereas another said I don’t think AI is going to be passé any time soon, it’s in its infancy. Time will tell, but the debate is likely to continue for some years.

Next up was a keynote interview with Fabio & Grooverider who were interviewed by Carl Loben (Editor, DJ Magazine) on the outdoor stage. As a pioneering DJ duo who shaped the sound of drum ’n’ bass (D&B), they played a vital role in establishing the house, techno and early breakbeat scenes in the UK. Setting the scene, Carl stated that D&B has only become commercial in the last few years, and is now the 4th most popular genre in electronic music.

They related lots of humorous tales and anecdotes about how their musical style developed from wanting to get hip hop into house, leading to jungle which came from a fusion of adding breakbeats to house and how the ‘Rage’ night at Heaven in London led to the birth of jungle. It took off to the extent that everyone, including Goldie, would give them tunes before anyone else and that’s what set them apart, joking that Carl Cox said he couldn’t keep up with them and was going to start playing techno. On D&B they said that they’ve been playing it for 20 years now, but in the early days it wasn’t cool, but it’s forward thinking music which is why people get it 15 years later. “The great thing about D&B is that you can put anything in it.” They embraced digital technology and CDs eventually because it was hard work carrying records around, especially after 9/11 and they often got lost or damaged when they travelled to gigs abroad. Roni Size was first person I saw playing from CDs, but he made it look hard which is why I didn’t start doing it at first. I love vinyl but the logistics and damage that could occur was not worth it. One night in a club, DJ Flight played a track I had paid a lot of money for and planned to play, but I played it again because it cost so much to buy it, and it jumped, so I thought that was it. They then went on to talk about their collaboration with The Outlook Orchestra at London’s Southbank Centre, how that came about and how it worked. They genuinely seemed surprised by their continuing success, with Grooverider joking “I still think I’ll have to go back to work next year which keeps me going because I don’t want to have to go back to work”. When asked where their favourite places to play are, the response was Australia and New Zealand as they have the same or better vibe than the UK and now there’s so much D&B in the UK that it’s not special any more. The genre is also kicking off again in the USA, but there they call it ‘fast dubstep’. Asked why they thought D&B had never had a hold in Ibiza, Grooverider said “drop the drink prices” and then it might happen because drink prices are important to the D&B crowd. They have played here but Ibiza is a hard nut to crack for D&B. If they don’t cut the drink and entrance prices it ain’t going to happen. Talking about the early days, they said that black people couldn’t get into house clubs and that there weren’t many black DJs playing in the clubs, so you had to be good. Grooverider gets the last word, saying “dance music brings a lot of cultures together”.

Video clip. Fabio & Grooverider talking about the current revival of jungle music.

I caught a bit of the debate Web3: Where to now? The brief was that Web3 promised decentralised, tokenised music experiences, giving artists back control of their output and fans a new way to support the music they love.

As hype and investment cools, can web3 still deliver a utopian future for creatives? What needs to change, what have we learned and where can we go from here? Someone stated that we’re in the early days and initially there was a gold rush on what W3 could bring to creators, but the hype cycle moves on to something else. Someone else said that Web3 is just another toolset - last year it was all about Web3, this year it’s all about AI. I didn’t catch the rest as I wanted to go to another session.

One of the most humorous interviews of the day took place in The Garden Suite, as DJ Fat Tony was interviewed by Radio 1’s Sarah Story. The briefing said: Fat Tony is one of the UK’s most-loved DJ characters. A staple in the London club scene from the late 80s, his wild reputation has evolved into a best-selling book ‘I Don't Take Requests’ about his life, and now over 15 years sober, he reflects on the industry and scene that nearly ended his life. Often referred to as dance music’s craziest DJ, he told so many stories about his life and some of the people he has encountered along the way, including Madonna, Kate Moss, Joan Collins and Elton John and had us all in stitches. He also talked openly about his addictions to drinking, drugs and sex. If you want to know the detail, I’m sure they’re all there in the book which is out in paperback on May 25th, or else check on the IMS YouTube channel to see if they publish the interview.

Video clip. Fat Tony talking about what makes a good DJ.

Next up was an interview with Orbital, brothers Phil and Paul Hartnoll. Interviewed by Pete Tong, their former A&R man on the outdoor stage, they talked for 45 minutes about 35 years of their careers. How they started making music, what it was like when they started to get noticed and their first appearance on Top of the Pops, through to giving up the day job to concentrate full-time on making music and developing the live show. They first appeared at Glastonbury in 1994, and told the fascinating tale of how they ended up headlining one of the stages as the first dance act ever to do so and in the process they changed Glastonbury forever. Watch the video clip below to hear the story of how this came about.

Video clip. Orbital talking about their first appearance at Glastonbury.

With lots of topics in between, including the use of samples, creating film soundtracks, how some of their albums were created, including their latest release ‘Optical Delusion’ which is their 10th studio album (their Covid lockdown album), on to being back together again as a touring band in 2023 and how they are finding that. Paul said it’s different from the old days, I’d go for a run in the mornings and then go to an art gallery - I loved discovering new places and I really enjoyed it. Paul also talked about his view on AI and how he is experimenting with it. However he did go on to say later that a lot of the best things when making music are what he called ‘happy accidents’, when something unexpected happens that changes what you are creating for the better.

Video clip. Orbital talking about AI.

Day 2 ended with networking drinks around the pool, followed by the IMS Legends Dinner in honour of this year’s legend, Mike Pickering at Beachouse in Playa d’en Bossa. Mike Pickering is a true pioneer and visionary in electronic music, his achievements are numerous: Hacienda DJ, Factory Records A&R signing Happy Mondays, Deconstruction Records boss bringing Black Box, Guru Josh, K Klass, Felix and Kyle Minogue and of course his own M People to the world and Columbia Records A&R who signed Calvin Harris amongst others. These are just a few highlights of a long career that has left a lasting legacy on electronic music and its culture. DJ Spoony hosted the event and Mike was interviewed by Pete Tong. Sadly I wasn’t there, so can’t comment more fully on what happened.

Day 3 started a bit late for me. I needed time to take stock of everything and also save myself for the Dalt Vila party in the evening (I also had bus problems getting to Destino but that’s another, very boring story).

I arrived later than expected but caught the very end of Marshall Jefferson’s masterclass of how he created his house classic ‘Move Your Body’ for IMS College. That should have been a very interesting session and I was annoyed to have missed most of it. Marshall played a set B2B with Ida Engberg at the Dalt Vila party in the evening and he played that tune.

I also caught the beginning of the in conversation session on the outdoor stage with legendary dance music producer Jellybean Benitez and Layla Benitez his daughter who is a rising global DJ star. This was ahead of their scheduled back to back set at the Dalt Vila party in the evening. Sadly this session clashed with the final keynote interview, so I missed pretty much all of it.

The Summit at Destino ended with a keynote interview with Grimes who was interviewed by Jaguar (BBC Radio 1 and founder of The Jaguar Foundation). The briefing in the schedule was that she is the ‘ultimate independent artist leading the way in Web3, AI, visuals, environmental principles … and making incredible music along the way’, and those were the topics that she talked about for an hour. Canadian born Claire Elise Boucher (aka Grimes) is an all-round artist and clearly has very strong opinions on lots of things. Musically at the moment she sees herself being both an artist and an engineer, and that in dance music, art and technology are married to each other. She fully embraces AI, saying that anyone who wants to use her voice can, and that they should share the output 50/50. She said that there’s “way too much gatekeeping in music” and that “copyright sucks” and art shouldn’t belong to anyone. She also believes that the music industry is defined by lawyers and is a stranglehold on music. She sees no reason why other people can’t use your voice and that you need to get rid of copyright - kind of open sourcing Grimes. She said that this moment feels like the beginning of the Internet and is one of the coolest times to be an artist ever. Jaguar asked her about when permission isn’t given and she replied that “I think consent is good but it doesn’t bother me”, you have to give up creative control. However she also said that you can’t replace that human touch of someone singing. Ethically there are difficult issues with AI, like is it ethical to use the voice of a dead artist, but you have to essentially do what is ethically right. Jaguar asked her where does she see AI going, and she replied that it depends on how much regulation there is and who regulates it and she would like the labels to have less control. “I don’t think art should be owned” and that everything about copyright is wrong.

Video clip. Grimes talking about AI and opening up to the risks.

She went on to talk a bit about how some of her albums were created, collaborating with other artists and lots more. She confessed that she has really bad stage fright, but loves DJing and thinks it’s really fun.

If you want to watch the entire interview with Grimes it has already been posted on the IMS YouTube Channel:

Dalt Vila party

The finale of The Summit is always the infamous party in Dalt Vila. Held in the Baluard de Santa Lucia at the top of Dalt Vila, it’s one of the best locations for an outdoor party in the world, with views up to the cathedral and across to the port and the hills behind Ibiza Town.

Kicking off the proceedings this year at 5pm was Constanza Pucheta, the Pete Tong DJ Academy Winner. With a couple of old-skool house DJs included in the lineup this year, the sets moved through a variety of house/dance genres, with great sets from Jaguar B2B with Taahliah, daughter and father Layla Benitez B2B Jellybean Benitez, Ida Engberg B2B Marshall Jefferson, Pete Tong B2B Kölsch, Anna, culminating with Camelphat closing the show just before midnight.

As in other years, it’s always an amazing finale to The Summit and it’s a great atmosphere watching and listening to the DJs as day turns into night and the impressive light, visual and laser show kicks in to accompany the music.

IMS Ibiza 2023 was another action-packed 3 days of interesting and entertaining interviews, debates and sessions, providing much food for thought for delegates and opportunities for networking in some of the best spaces that Ibiza has to offer. The hot topic that came up time and time again this year was AI, the debate having moved on from last years’ interest in Web3. People were also talking about ‘fans’ and how to build ‘fandom’, particularly in relation to TikTok and how this can increase revenue streams for artists (for both DJs and musicians). This was something I had not noticed in previous years (it even came up in the IMS Business Report), possibly because of the increasing use of Web3 tools and social media for promotion and monetisation. 

IMS YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@TheIMSIbiza