The annual dance industry conference IMS Ibiza kicked off today (April 22) on its namesake island with the presentation of the IMS Business Report, a yearly statistical breakdown of the most significant trends in the genre and business.

The 12th edition of the report was authored by MIDiA Research’s Mark Mulligan, who has been in the role the last four years. Mulligan gave the first presentation of the conference, debuting this year’s report to a packed room ahead of three days of panel discussions, keynotes, wellness practices and other happenings.

The report looks at the macro trends of the music business at large before drilling down into themes related to electronic music, with Mulligan reporting that for the music business overall, “Growth actually was faster and stronger than the year before,” but with streaming growing slower than the overall industry for the first time.

“Why is that a good thing?” Mulligan continued. “Because the music industry is learning how to diversify. The biggest growth that happened last year was expanded rights, which is things like merch and live and sponsorships… with a massive growth in physical revenue.”

Going on to discuss the year’s key trends, Mulligan continued, “Listening on its own isn’t really what music is about, and certainly it’s not what electronic music is about. The wider music industry sees fandom as how much money can we make out of our customers. For electronic music, fandom and scenes have always been the secret superpower, and it’s a real time to lean into that for the electronic music industry.”

As such, his presentation detailed the importance of real scenes and authentic culture to electronic music, why global hardship is making harder styles of electronic music more popular, the total value of the global electronic industry and more. These are seven key takeaways from the 2025 IMS Business Report.