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DJ duo Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike have signed with Independent Artist Group in all areas, including film and television for Dimitri Vegas Thivaios’ burgeoning acting career. The pair had previously been represented by CAA. Belgian-born brothers of Greek heritage, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike made history as the first duo to be named the […]
Palm Tree Festival is touching down in France this summer.
The festival, produced by Kygo’s Palm Tree Crew, will throw its first St. Tropez edition on July 26. The show on the French Riviera will be headlined by A$AP Rocky and Swedish House Mafia, with the lineup also featuring Sammy Virji, Cassian, Cruz, Lubo Hang, Xandra and Roman Cleiss. Tickets for the event go on sale this Friday, May 16.
Previous editions of Palm Tree Festival have happened in a laundry list of high-end locations including Hawaii, Australia, Aspen, Lake Tahoe and the Hamptons. Event organizers note that additional European editions of the event will be announced “soon.”
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“As we continue to grow Palm Tree Music Festival globally, St. Tropez marks a monumental step in our expansion into Europe,” says Myles Shear, the co-founder of Palm Tree Crew and Kygo’s longtime manager. “We’re bringing the best of Palm Tree Crew — music, travel, and entertainment — to one of the most beautiful destinations in the world, and kicking off what’s to be an amazing European run.”
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In addition to Palm Tree Festival, Kygo and Shear also opened a brick and mortar Palm Tree Club in Miami late last year, with both the festival and the resort further establishing the duo’s vision of Palm Tree Club as a lifestyle brand. In 2022, the pair told Billboard about how they’re basing this model on Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville empire of music, bars, resorts and events.
“He created so many areas where [his fans] can come together — it doesn’t even need to be at his shows. It can be at his hotel or a Margaritaville bar,” Kygo said of Buffet. “That’s what we’re trying to create: something that’s bigger than the music. A community, a movement.”
San Francisco’s Portola festival has announced the lineup for its fourth edition this fall. The bill is led by LCD Soundsystem, The Prodigy, Underworld, Dom Dolla, Peggy Gou, Mau P, Chris Lake and Chris Lorenzo performing under their Anti Up alias and, in the festival’s continued tradition of delivering a marquee pop moment, Christina Aguilera. […]
This summer, a number of DJs will be taking the phrase “raise the roof” literally. As announced Monday (May 12), Tao Group Hospitality is partnering with the Edge at Hudson Yards — aka the highest outdoor sky deck in the Western Hemisphere — to install a pop-up nightclub 1,100 feet in the air, setting up […]
On May 10, DJ Snake is set to perform consecutively in two of the largest concert venues in France: the Stade de France (80,000 people) and then the Accor Arena (20,000 people). It’s an unprecedented feat for an artist accustomed to breaking records as he prepares to release his third studio album.
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DJ Snake stands relaxed yet alert, his eyes sharp in front of the lens of Nabil Elderkin—a renowned director and photographer known, among other things, for his work with Travis Scott and The Weeknd. The artist is about to give a landmark concert at the Stade de France, titled The Final Show, followed by an after-party at the Accor Arena. An unprecedented feat for a DJ in France and a testament to his popularity in his home country, the event sold out in just three minutes.
More than a decade after his rise began, he is now one of the most influential ambassadors of the French electronic scene and ranks among the 100 most popular artists in the world on Spotify. Four of his singles have made it into the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.
“Paris is my city,” he declares at the start of the interview. He has a visceral connection to the capital that goes beyond simple geographical attachment. “It’s the city that taught me everything, really. Even musically—the strong influence of hip-hop in Paris, African music, Arabic music, French pop… That whole mix is what makes my music sound the way it does today.”
He found himself backed into a corner in the summer of 2012, after several years of DJing in the capital’s upscale clubs. Having already worked behind the scenes for artists like Lady Gaga (earning him a Grammy nomination), he felt limited in his artistic expression. So, he invested his savings into renting a recording studio and gave himself two months to make it as a solo artist. That risky bet turned out to be the launching point for a meteoric rise, beginning in 2013 with “Turn Down for What,” his collaboration with Lil Jon.
A Leading Figure of the French Electronic Music Scene
“With all humility, I don’t claim to represent France,” DJ Snake confides. “I represent a guy from Paris, who’s Franco-Algerian, and I just try my best to do interesting things.”
Yet with 13 billion streams on Spotify and four music videos surpassing one billion views on YouTube, DJ Snake undeniably carries the country’s colors on the international stage. “We have an incredible electronic scene that’s respected worldwide. Our older brothers did an extraordinary job—Daft Punk, Justice, Bob Sinclar, Martin Solveig, David Guetta, Madeon…”
The Stade de France, the largest venue in the country, marks the pinnacle of an unlikely journey: “It’s my destiny—to come from the very bottom, have an unconventional path, be a guy no one believed in at first, and end up at the top, at the Stade de France.”
More than just a concert, The Final Show represents a clear ambition for him: “The goal is really to make history.” When ticket sales opened, more than 500,000 people were in the queue at the same time. “We had planned a whole promo run—interviews, TV appearances, billboards in the streets of Paris… We had a full campaign ready, because never, ever, ever did I think I’d fill the Stade de France in three minutes.”
So the artist decided to extend the celebration: “I said to Julie, my manager, ‘Check if the Accor Arena is available.’ If it was, we’d throw the afterparty there. At least we’d have 20,000 people—20,000 lucky ones, 20,000 members of the Snake Army—with whom we could throw a massive event.” It was a winning bet: the Bercy venue also sold out.
DJ Snake
Nabil Elderkin for Billboard France
Supporting the New Generation
“You can come from a small suburb and do big things, with very little—just with drive, ideas, a group of friends, fun, and a lot of ambition,” says DJ Snake. “What I mean is, ‘Go for it, anything is possible.’ You’ve got a passport, you can travel—have fun, do what you need to do, and fight for your vision.”
The artist expresses confidence in the future of the new generation: “There are so many talented people, and I’m really not worried about the industry or the French scene. I think of someone like Trym, who’s bringing his hard techno vibe. His project is going to keep growing—Americans love it—and I think what he represents is really cool.”
The next step after his Stade de France triumph: launching a label dedicated to supporting new talent. “I think after my album, the goal is to start a new label and sign a lot of young artists. I want to give them a platform to express themselves.”
The Nomadic Spirit
While Paris remains his emotional home port, DJ Snake sees himself first and foremost as a citizen of the world. “I strangely feel at home everywhere,” he explains. “And I really have that nomadic thing. The nomadic spirit—it’s something that truly reflects who I am. It’s a rhythm I’ve had since I was young. I’ve always been on the move, I’ve always traveled.
“Now, I’m able to absorb the vibe of a city quickly. It’s crazy what I’ve managed to develop—I’m just realizing it now.” Still, it’s a demanding balance: “Traveling is very inspiring—meeting people, connecting with artists, discovering different cultures… But the travel itself is exhausting. It’s a lot of pressure. I have a hard time creating while on tour. I need to stop and settle somewhere. I stepped back a bit from social media when I was touring more, because I was finishing my album and needed not to be constantly on the move.”
With “Disco Maghreb” in 2022, DJ Snake reached a form of personal fulfillment. The instrumental track with Algerian influences came from a deeply intimate place. “The impact of ‘Disco Maghreb’ was huge. It was unprecedented, and I really didn’t expect it. I was the first to be surprised,” he says. “It will still be played at weddings 20 years from now.
“Algeria gives me so much love. It’s really hard for me to walk down the street there, for example. That’s something I don’t experience anywhere else, even though I’m known pretty much worldwide.”
For him, the real victory lies in his ability to make traditional music resonate far beyond its original audience: “When I’m performing in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Taiwan or Japan, and I see people dancing to Algerian rhythms—that’s a cultural victory.”
DJ Snake
Nabil Elderkin for Billboard France
A New Album After Six Years of Waiting
DJ Snake is preparing to make his return with a new project, with the announcement coinciding with his show at the Stade de France. “It’s true that it went by quickly,” he admits, reflecting on the time since “Carte Blanche.” “I felt the need to offer a new chapter in my career. I had things to say, things to offer. With the Stade de France, I thought, ‘I think we’re going to make a great combo, Stade de France, album. We’re going to have fun.’
“It’s an album where I had fun. I pushed creativity to the max. Of course, it’ll still be DJ Snake, I’m not coming back with a funk album or a drum and bass album. There will be electronic sounds, there will be touching moments, and we’re going to have fun.”
This versatility is one of the artist’s signatures: “I release ‘Let Me Love You’ with Justin Bieber, the next month I drop a dubstep track called ‘Propaganda,’ which is super aggressive. Then I do something like ‘Magenta Riddim’ with Indian influences. After that, I can do a house track, I can do ‘Disco Maghreb’…. I really took people on a journey from left to right. But always with integrity and my vision. That’s why people have never seen me as an opportunist, because my approach has always been sincere.”
He embraces this diversity as an integral part of his identity: “When you’re in music, your art has to be solid, and it has to touch people. There has to be emotion, but it has to connect with the audience. I don’t understand artists who make the same song every time. They have a hit with something, and then they make five follow-ups with the same rhythm, the same guitar. I’d go crazy. That’s why I always need to reinvent myself and offer something different.”
In Search of Authenticity
In an electronic landscape where trends, particularly on social media, often overshadow creative choices, artistic independence is a fundamental principle for DJ Snake. “My vision is what matters the most to me. I’ve done everything to protect it and to maintain this independence, this freedom to navigate.”
For the producer behind global hits like “Let Me Love You” and “Lean On,” he says “the impact of TikTok” has changed electronic music, with consumption becoming increasingly rapid. “The industry has changed. The way entertainment, not just music, is consumed has made it so very little remains,” he observes.
“Since I was young, I’ve always been on the move, I’ve always traveled… We’ve met the biggest artists in the world, the biggest celebrities, visited the most beautiful places on the planet. But at some point, you go through all of that and you start to appreciate the simplest things.”
This quest for authenticity shows up both in his music and his creative approach: “My music is a reflection of my daily life, my life—it’s me, really. I translate what I feel. For sure, there will be simpler things than what I’ve done before.”
His side project, The Outlaw, under which he will perform at the Accor Arena, also allows him to return to his roots: “It was really about having total creative freedom, not worrying about my image, my status, or having to play all my pop hits all the time. It’s really a kind of outlet.” He shares that he aims to release an EP under The Outlaw in the coming months.
This article originally appeared on Billboard France.
This week in dance music: The long-awaited reopening of Brooklyn Mirage has been delayed “indefinitely” after permitting issues ahead of the club’s opening weekend. This delay forced the cancellation of Sara Landry’s back-to-back opening weekend shows, with the hard techno producer and her team scrambling to relocate the performances and the 12,000 people meant to […]
Legendary house label Trax Records has dropped its first vinyl release in a decade. The project is a six-track compilation called Rising Again and features the work French duo Jacques x Gregory, American house producer Joe Smooth, KushGad, Spada, ThadX and veteran house producer and Trax affiliate Screamin’ Rachael. Five hundred copies of Rising Again […]
John Summit will play his biggest solo headlining set to date this fall in Boulder, Colo. The show will happen on October 18 and the city’s 50,000-capacity Folsom Field, the football stadium located on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. The show is being presented by AEG Presents Rocky Mountains in partnership with CU Boulder, with general tickets […]
At 5:10 p.m. ET on Thursday evening (May 1), Sara Landry’s agents got the call that would send their next three days into turmoil.
A rep from New York City venue Brooklyn Mirage was on the phone to say that Landry’s show at the club that night was canceled. The sold-out performance was meant to be Mirage’s first concert upon reopening after a months-long closure and extensive remodel, but the venue was forced to nix Landry’s show after building inspectors declined to grant the facility a permit to open.
Less than an hour after delivering this news to Landry’s team, Mirage posted an announcement explaining the situation to its hundreds of thousands of social media followers. The update was especially head-spinning for Landry’s team, given that they’d had dinner with Mirage operators the night prior and no one had mentioned there might be an issue.
“I had been paying very close attention and asking for lots of updates,” Landry tells Billboard of Mirage’s reopening. “Like ‘How are we looking? Is this going to happen?’ The response was, ‘We’re going to open; we have all the permits; everything’s on schedule.’ But when [the cancellation] happened, there was a part of me that was like, ‘Okay, this was a statistical possibility.’”
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When the call came, Landry was in a 2026 planning meeting with her entire team at the WME office in Manhattan. Their meeting space quickly became, as Landry now calls it, “the situation room,” where she, her agents, her publicist and the rest of her team scrambled to find another venue for the DJ and the 6,000 people who were scheduled to see her at the Mirage that same evening. It was a situation they’d repeat the next day when The Mirage announced it also could not open on Friday (May 2), effectively canceling Landry’s second show at the venue. (Additional opening weekend shows by party brand CityFox and South African producer Black Coffee were also cancelled, and Brooklyn Mirage has since announced that its reopening is delayed “indefinitely.”)
“Obviously, opening the Mirage was a big deal for us, especially coming out of such a massive Coachella,” says Tracey Manner, Landry’s publicist and founder of PR agency Sequel. “We had been working on things to make this another moment for her.”
The Mirage was meant to host the New York debut of a large-scale show called Eternalism that the hard techno producer and her team had spent the last year creating, which made its U.S. debut last month at Coachella’s Sahara tent and which by Thursday was set up inside the Mirage for a performance that, as it turned out, was never going to happen.
By the time Manner got the cancellation update and left another meeting to join the team at WME, she says, “Sara had eight agents in the room, everyone on a call with another venue, talking to legal, talking about ticketing with Dice, about how this could all work. WME pulled into one room… and every single person pulled out their own version of expertise.”
“There was never going to be an option where I sat in my hotel room without doing anything, knowing that thousands of people spent money in this economy to buy tickets and fly in,” says Landry.
While Landry’s agents, Bailey Greenwood and Annie Chung, along with other WME agents, including the agency’s head of electronic music Stephanie LaFera, worked the phones, Landry and Manner strategized on messaging. They decided it was important to post videos of Landry explaining the situation, so fans could see and hear her, a move they knew would humanize the situation.
“We talked about getting things across as clearly as possible and not getting stuck in anything about the Mirage,” says Manner. “We were always going to take the high road.”
“The key piece is always being transparent,” says Chung. “In the absence of information, people tend to start creating their own narratives or spinning out, and so it was important for us to update people as we went along and say, ‘This is what we know right now. This is what’s feasible.’ Fans were so receptive to Sara being the face of trying to make something happen.”
Within an hour of getting the news of the Thursday cancellation, Landry posted a video of herself to her social media accounts explaining that she and her team were working on solutions. An hour after that, the WME team had secured the Brooklyn Storehouse for a show that would happen the following day, Friday (May 2). Landry went back on social media and posted another video explaining that Brooklyn Mirage Thursday ticketholders would have their original tickets refunded by Mirage and receive an email with tickets to the Brooklyn Storehouse show.
Not long after, Landry posted another video saying she and her team had also secured Knockdown Center in Queens for a show that night, Thursday (May 1). Anyone, whether they had a Mirage ticket or not, could RSVP for free to this show, with Landry requesting that people who lived in New York skip this Thursday night set and go to the Friday show at Storehouse, to prioritize people who’d traveled to New York for the Thursday event. By this point, it was impossible for the Eternalism production to be moved to either venue, necessitating a much sparer set-up for these shows.
While Landry’s team was reconfiguring her Thursday performance, they also had to prepare for the possibility of Friday’s show cancelling, which it ultimately was. When this Friday cancellation happened, Landry’s team was able to add two more shows at Knockdown, one on Friday night and the other on Saturday afternoon (May 3), to accommodate the roughly 6,000 Mirage ticketholders at the 3,100 capacity Knockdown.
Meanwhile, the team combed through emails to prioritize getting tickets to the Thursday show to people who needed to see it that night, including those who’d traveled to New York and could only stay in the city for one day (this included a couple who’d received Thursday night tickets as a wedding gift). As the WME team was working through the complicated process of getting new tickets sent out through Dice, Manner was responding to comments on social media to help clarify the situation.
“We all split up the tasks and called different people, purely based on everyone’s relationships and who we could probably get the quickest answer from,” says Greenwood. “For example, Knockdown Center did the two shows with Sara last year and have booked her for years, so it was honestly a really great moment for them to have her back, and they were heroes.”
Chung, Greenwood and the team were cognizant, however, of the organization required when relocating thousands of people to a new venue. They note that most city “takeovers” by artists, which find acts playing myriad venues over a couple of days, typically take months of planning.
“When you do a pop-up at that capacity and scope, there’s always the chance that it can do more harm than good in terms of creating chaos and sending people to a venue that can’t withstand the demand,” says Chung. “For us, it was springing into action to figure out a game plan that made it possible for everyone who was planning to see Sara to safely see her.”
Sara Landry at Brooklyn Storehouse
Simon’s Playground
Greenwood also nods to the strength of the local dance music community in having Knockdown Center and Brooklyn Storehouse fully staffed and ready in terms of lighting and sound with just hours’ notice. Ultimately, Landry played the pop-up show at Knockdown Center on Thursday night, the Friday early evening show at Brooklyn Storehouse, then another show later that night at Knockdown Center and another Knockdown Center show on Saturday, performing for 15,000 people altogether over the weekend — a number exceeding the 12,000 she’d been scheduled to play for at Mirage — all of whom were admitted free of charge.
The artists who’d flown in to be her support acts at the Mirage, Amsterdam-based producer Diøn and French artist Shlømo, both also got to play, as did the local support acts who’d been booked on the Mirage bills. The financial elements of the entire weekend are still being worked through by WME and the various venues involved. (Typically, with these types of cancellations, the venue is on the hook for paying 100% of the artist fee.)
Landry adds that “obviously I wanted nothing more than to go through with things at The Mirage, and I know for a fact that the Mirage team wanted nothing more than for that to go ahead. They had so many people on the ground that were working hard and passionately to bring their vision to life. I think that, unfortunately, sometimes the construction gods are not on your side and sometimes the bureaucracy gods are just not on your side. Stuff can always go wrong.”
While New York has yet to see Eternalism, Landry says, “I did give them four crazy underground type sets, so I think they were happy.” (She ultimately DJ-ed for nine hours over the weekend, and when we talk on Tuesday morning, she’s planted in bed, where she’s been since Sunday, intermittently napping, eating artichoke pizza, scrolling TikTok and watching Hacks.)
Greenwood, Chung and Manner all agree the vibe was extra special at the Storehouse and Knockdown shows, with the cheers a bit louder and longer, as people seemed grateful just to be in the room.
“It definitely felt extra special for us,” Greenwood says. “This was really a stress test. Cancellations happen; production stuff happens. This is where our training and expertise are the most important, in how quickly can you pivot.”
Illenium has signed with Republic Records. The move comes after the electronic producer’s tenure at Warner Records, where he released two albums dating back to 2021. Prior to that, he was signed to UMG and the indie labels Seeking Blue and Kasaya Records.
“This is a completely new chapter for me,” the artist born Nick Miller tells Billboard of signing with Republic. “When I had my meeting with Republic, I just felt a family sort of love. I want people working my music that are as passionate as I am and truly have my best interest in mind. Republic absolutely has that for me.”
“I just felt an energy at Republic that was really inspiring,” he continues. “They’re also the best at what they do, so it’s hard to even consider anywhere else.”
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Illenium says that within the next six months, he’ll reveal information about a new project that he calls “my most ambitious, without a doubt.” He doesn’t say whether or not this project is a new album, but notes that “I’m working every day, but don’t have an exact ETA yet. But I’m moving at light speed.”
The last Illenium album was a 2023 self-titled project and an attendant remix album. Since then, the Colorado-based producer has released a handful of singles and remixes. His forthcoming work will include what he calls “a sick drum n bass style song” with Kid Kudi. He also says that “Ryan Tedder and I wrote something beautiful with Amy Allen and Lostboy,” and there additionally is “a bunch of other stuff that’s awesome but not ready to share yet.” On Tuesday (May 6), Illenium and Hayla also teased a new collaboration they say is “coming soon.”
“We are thrilled to welcome Illenium and his expert team to the Republic family,” Glenn Mendlinger, the evp of Republic Records and president of IMPERIAL & Casablanca Records tells Billboard. “The world he has created and the fandom he has built over the last decade is nothing short of remarkable. Nick is a true pioneer in the electronic music landscape and has carved out a lane that is distinctly Illenium. His anthemic, emotional music and signature production has touched people globally and his landmark live shows have created incredible communal moments for his fans. Together our ambitions are grand and the team is already setting up for a historic year ahead.”
In addition to his recorded music, Illenium has carved out a wildly successful touring career, becoming one of the few electronic artists able to play and sell out stadiums and arenas. His Trilogy shows have taken place at a handful of stadiums across the U.S., with a 2023 show in Denver grossing $3.9 million and selling 47,000 tickets, according to numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore.