Photo credit: Tomorrowland
In June, Tomorrowland organizers were forced to shelve their festival for the second year in a row due to a ban on large gatherings issued by local government officials. Now, less than a month after arriving at Euronext Amsterdam, Universal Music Group has signed an “exclusive global partnership” with EDM’s annual event, focusing on the newly launched Tomorrowland Music.
Universal Music Group and Tomorrowland announced their partnership agreement through a formal statement today. As part of the professional union, the Belgian festival has established a label, Tomorrowland Music, which will work together with Virgin Records Germany for new releases and will receive global distribution support from Virgin Music Label & Artist Services.
For reference, Richard Branson gave his blessing to UMG’s revamped Virgin division in February. And after stating that the 400,000 annual two-weekend Tomorrowland guests come from some 200 countries, or every nation in the world, in a testament to the logistical difficulties associated with holding the festival amid a pandemic, the Statement delves into the scope of the Tomorrowland-UMG partnership.
“Through this innovative and bespoke label partnership, Tomorrowland will enjoy direct access to a collective group of UMG’s most successful international label divisions, creating greater flexibility to deliver global hits,” the document reads. “The association will be led in Berlin by Alexander Neipp, Daniel Schmidt and Magnus Textor (Virgin Records) and Tina Adams (Virgin Music Label & Artist Services).”
Additionally, the first release from the newly minted label, Never Sleeps’s “You Got the Love” (“a new Afrojack ft. Chico Rose project”), is scheduled to be available to fans tomorrow. Addressing the partnership with UMG in a statement, Tomorrowland founder and CEO Michiel Beers emphasized his international vision for the newcomer brand.
“Creativity is something that cannot be stopped at Tomorrowland. I am very proud of how resilient our team was in finding new ways to bring Tomorrowland to the reality of last period, ”Beers said in part.
“We’ve taken the extra time to focus on projects that were on our list for a long time and one of them was definitely the launch of our own Tomorrowland Music label,” he continued. “With the combined forces of our dedicated label team, the broader Media House in Tomorrowland and the different Virgin Music teams around the world, we aim to introduce fans from all corners of the world to the most exciting projects in the world. electronic music”.
The Tomorrowland deal represents the latest in a recent series of high-profile deals for Universal Music, which has also detailed an ambitious plan to develop a greater presence in the Chinese music market and finalized a “strategic global partnership” with Aerosmith to this point. in August.
More broadly, the Big Three label, more than seven percent of which is owned by Pershing Square Holdings, has also closed licensing deals with Snap, TikTok rival Lomotif, Triller and Boomplay during the year. Similarly, in 2021 the Vivendi subsidiary partnered with BTS Hybe’s agency to create a live streaming platform and launch Universal Arabic Music.
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