Electronic music added £2.4billion to UK economy in 2024 – but clubs feel neglected by government

nme.com:

The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) and showed that, although the figures are down from £2.5billion from the previous year, the electronic music scene is worth around £88.4million when it comes to recorded music and £45.5million when it comes to publishing.Tallied, these total just shy of £134million – which is actually a one per cent increase from the £132.7million recorded last year.Electronic music thriving in the UK is also seen as the number of UK festivals featuring the genre rose to 310 from 2023’s 294.

Similarly, the festivals saw attendees rise 14 per cent (up to 3million people), equalling a revenue of £646.2 million.As reported by Mixmag, the past 12 months saw ticket vendors like Skiddle take in record-breaking levels of ticket sales, totalling £163million, and claim that it was electronic music that made up the majority.The report also shared that 80 per cent of artists asked said that they were “significantly” inspired by electronic music – which is an impressive 73 per cent higher than the previous year.However, despite all of this, the live music scene in the UK is still feeling the strain.

Despite there being an increase in ticket sales for live music, countless grassroots venues are struggling to remain open.Despite electronic music dominating the festival scene over the past 12 months, that same period of time saw 72 independent festivals cancelled, postponed or closed permanently.In the NTIA findings, clubs in the UK dropped from 874 to 851 in 2024.

Overall, it also reported roughly 85.5 million electronic-music-based nights out across clubs, festivals and gigs across last year.