Electronic Dance Music, or EDM, is huge. It’s unavoidable – dance music superstars such as Calvin Harris and Avicii are amongst the biggest stars in the world, with their live shows frequently grossing millions of dollars. With the sheer volume of EDM that’s around nowadays, you could almost be forgiven for thinking that it’s ‘all the same’, or that every song is merely a minor variation to a familiar template. Sure, you get the mid tempo 4/4 beats of House music and the groovy, laidback style of trip-hop, but all these are genre-specific variations of the electronic music that’s taking over pop songs. It’s good-time music, and where in the world offers more good times than the entertainment capital of the world, Las Vegas? Vegas may be little more than the strip of casinos for those with gaming minds, but it’s rapidly becoming the EDM hub of America.
In 2008, The Palms Casino Resort hired legendary DJ Paul Oakenfold to open Rain Las Vegas, the first megaclub to open in the city. This surprising move, seen at that time as something that wasn’t headline-worthy, has proven to be one heck of a strategic exercise. For a start, Paul Oakenfold saw Vegas as the perfect place to work creatively – “You can be really creative; you come up with great ideas in terms of building out the venue, the decoration and also getting involved with new ideas.”
It hasn’t always been this easy for EDM artists. Electronic music was pretty much non-existent around ten years ago (at least to the collective radar of mainstream media), and Hip Hop was the dominant genre in the casino-laden city up until a couple of years agio. Even the music that can be heard through the casino’s cash cows (otherwise known as slot machines), has very few EDM choices. Daniel Lee, legendary sound engineer of Castle Jackpot’s affiliate slot developer IGT, never even used EDM in his slots – it was always either hip hop, classical, or pop music. Given the success of the genre’s appeal to people, it could well be argued that electronic music will be a key commodity of future slot machines.
Vegas nightclubs, anchored on the brimming selection of casinos and resorts, are multimillion-dollar businesses. In fact, the research and consulting firm Technomic Inc., Las Vegas accounts for 12 out of the 20 highest earning bars and lounges in the US, with www.xslasvegas.com/venueinfo, (Wynn Hotel and Casino’s premier superclub), reaching $60 million in annual revenue. This isn’t even including the city’s thriving pool party scene. Encore’s Surrender Nightclub, an outdoor oasis musically directed by the one and only Steve Aoki, has been known to host private pool parties for VIP guests, players, and casino executives.
These numbers don’t lie: people do come to Las Vegas to party and listen to electronic music. There’s eve been speculation that Las Vegas is slowly becoming the new Ibiza, the Spanish island known for its crazy nightlife and an enormous electronic music following. In fact, the largest electronic music festival in the world – Electric Daisy Carnival – attracted 300,000 people in 2012. In July 2013, EDC even went to London, becoming the first international offering of the festival that lasts for days on end.
Las Vegas brings in artists from all over the world, including Deadmau5, David Guetta and Tiesto. Ultimately, DJ Paul Oakenfold is merely one of many who’s presently voicing his optimism on the push that casinos and nightclubs show towards creating an avenue for aspiring musicians to make electronic music and make it big in the Sin City. If the EDM craze is slowly dying down, somebody forgot to tell the party people of Las Vegas – the fun-time feelings and good-time vibes of EDM are a huge hit in the party capital of the world, and we can’t see those vibes fading away any time soon.