DEAG accelerates growth in the festival sector and enters into groundbreaking cooperation with 'Black Mamba'

Corporate News

DEAG accelerates growth in the festival sector and enters into groundbreaking cooperation with "Black Mamba"

Berlin, 24 June 2024 – DEAG Deutsche Entertainment Aktiengesellschaft (“DEAG”) is strategically expanding business activities in its festival segment and has concluded a cooperation with Black Mamba Event & Marketing GmbH (“Black Mamba”). Among other things, Black Mamba is the organiser of the renowned electronic urban festival Sputnik Spring Break on the Pouch peninsula.

In the EDM/Techno/Urban music segment, DEAG is already represented with successful festival formats such as Airbeat One, MAYDAY, NATURE ONE, Indian Spirit, Syndicate, Ruhr in Love, Toxicator and the Kessel Festival in Stuttgart and reaches more than 250,000 visitors each year in this area alone. DEAG is the leading producer of EDM/Techno/Urban festivals in Germany and continues to strengthen this position by hosting the Sputnik Spring Break Festival. The Sputnik Spring Break Festival is a multi-genre festival that successfully combines Electro, Alternative, Hip-Hop and Urban music. Comprehensive synergy effects with the DEAG Group in terms of production and infrastructure as well as artist acquisition will lead to continuous margin improvements. DEAG is further expanding its position in the Electronic Music segment and intends to utilise market opportunities to generate further growth. The German domestic market in particular has a large fan base and leads the ranking of monthly Electronic Music listeners with 369 million, ahead of the United States. Electronic Music outperformed other genres such as Rock, Latin and Hip-Hop in terms of growth in online consumption and recorded the strongest growth worldwide in 2023. In global terms, the Electronic Music industry recorded an increase of 17% to USD 11.8 billion in 2023 (IMS Business Report 2024).

In total, DEAG is organising more than 30 one-day and multi-day festival events of all music genres in its core markets of Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Spain and Ireland, attracting over 800,000 visitors each year. These include “Sion sous les étoiles” (Switzerland), the “Belladrum Tartan Heart” (Scotland) and the “Barcelona Rock Fest” (Spain), for example.

Sputnik Spring Break has been taking place since 2008 and is now one of the largest festivals in eastern Germany with around 30,000 visitors every year. The 2024 edition of the festival from 17 to 20 May 2024 was once again a complete success and was completely sold out with headliners such as Cro, Scooter, Nina Chuba, Tream and Timmy Trumpet.

DEAG will continue to drive the consolidation of the Live Entertainment industry in Germany and Europe as well as its organic growth in the future.

“We are delighted to have found a strong cooperation partner in our segment in DEAG. Together, we will continuously improve our festival for our guests and use the network within the Group featuring other strong festivals and the experienced team for further expansion,” said Rico Tietze, Managing Director of Black Mamba Event & Marketing.

Christian Diekmann, CEO National of DEAG, added: “With its extremely attractive location and open music programme, Sputnik Spring Break is one of the most successful festivals in East Germany and has been established for 15 years. I am really looking forward to the intensive cooperation with our new partners, who will contribute a lot to the realisation of our goals and strategy in the festival sector through their experience and understanding.”

“We have successfully and profitably implemented our growth strategy in the EDM festival segment since 2019. The cooperation with Rico Tietze will enable us to leverage synergies throughout the Group and in various projects beyond Sputnik. This is the next big step for us at DEAG to strengthen our leading role in this segment,” noted Detlef Kornett, Group CEO of DEAG.

About DEAG

DEAG Deutsche Entertainment Aktiengesellschaft (DEAG), a leading entertainment service company and live entertainment provider, produces and promotes live events of all genres and sizes in Europe. With its group companies, DEAG has been present at 22 locations in its core markets of Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark and Spain. As a live entertainment service provider with an integrated business model, DEAG has extensive expertise in the conception, organisation, promotion and production of live events.

Founded in Berlin in 1978, DEAG's core business areas today comprise Rock/Pop, including Urban and Electronic Dance Music, Classics & Jazz, Family Entertainment, Spoken Word & Literary Events, Arts+Exhibitions, Ticketing and Entertainment Services. Live Entertainment for all generations, including Arts+Exhibitions, are important building blocks for the further development of DEAG's own content.

For around 6,000 events, more than 10 million tickets are sold annually for DEAG’s own and third-party content - a steadily growing share of these are sold via the Group's own ticketing platforms myticket.de, myticket.at, myticket.co.uk, gigantic.com and tickets.ie.

Investor & Public Relations           

Axel Mühlhaus, edicto GmbH                                                                                                              
Eschersheimer Landstraße 42                                                                                                                              
60322 Frankfurt/Main                                                                                                                                                  Phone: 0049 69 905505-52
e-mail: deag@edicto.de