China's Electric Jungle music festival adapts its business model

On the surface, China's Electric Jungle music festival has had avery successful four years, landing it firmly into the middle kingdom’s thriving EDM festival scene. However, the event organizer will expand its business going forward, with the addition of a local booking and offline management agency, including venue booking and fan club operation. It's not difficult to understand such a move, considering the holistic aspects of large-scale event management in the fast-growing yet unstable EDM market in China.

Despite the Jungle festival's young history in the EDM market, it stood out from the pack with its massive production, mouth-watering line-ups chock full of international EDM stars and the homegrown feel of its undercard. Compared to say, the failed Storm Festival, Electric Jungle felt better organized and promoted on a local level. According to officials, the total cost of the was 40 million RMB with over half of it spent on artist fees. In return, they say they banked in excess of 10 million RMB for each festival.

During the last two years however, ticket sales have been heading south in spite of (or because of) the sheer number of new music festivals in China. With an already profitable business model and the fans locked in, Jungle event is transitioning into a more diversified entertainment business. Zhou Boyi, the founder of Jungle Events, said they have already set up their own agency and signed new artists, as well as promoting events for local and foreign artists.

And Jungle are not the first local company to begin diversifying. In early October the Chinese music platform NetEase launched an EDM brand 'Fever' to explore the EDM business field with event promotion, talent sourcing, venue management and EDM music tourism. It looks like this approach will become the new normal for Chinese entertainment agencies looking to get sustained market share in the Chinese EDM scene.

[Via Music Business China]