Dance isn't dead says Ministry of Sound chief

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Minsitry of Sound: set for a busy Bank Holiday

Sound investor: Lohan Presencer

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• The best 20 Bank Holiday club nights

Tonight and tomorrow night, the Ministry of Sound will be full to its 1,300 capacity. Sunday should be buzzy, too.

First up is Judge Jules. Then the trance DJ gives way to the filthier grooves of Mark Knight in what should be an epic seven-hour set. Sunday sees a return of UK garage pioneer, Spoony.

It's a bank holiday weekend - one of the biggest, if not the biggest, club weekends of the year - and the famous Elephant & Castle venue will be heaving with a few thousand happy punters. Who says dance music is dead? Who says the Ministry is finished?

Well, quite a lot of people have at some stage or another. Currently, the major labels like to promote the idea that music is all about guitar bands and live performance. Similarly, there are those who maintain the era of the super-club and super-DJ is also over.

Not so, maintains Lohan Presencer, the Ministry's CEO. One of the labels the Ministry owns is Dance Nation.

It's just completed a sell-out UK tour, taking its biggest DJs to seven arenas. "That's 50,000 tickets for three-and-a-half hours of pumping music," enthuses Presencer. "Dance Nation will be number one in the compilation chart - we will sell half a million Dance Nation albums this year."

That's just one brand. Presencer sits on top of a mini-empire that embraces the original club, fully revamped and 18 years old this year; labels, including Ministry of Sound, Global Underground, Hed Kandi, Euphoria and Dance Nation; branded products, among them clothing, bags, fitness DVDs, perfumes, even branded vodka; and radio and TV stations.

"Everyone thinks Ministry of Sound is just a club," says Presencer, "but it's really a global record and lifestyle business, selling millions of items a year."

To make his point he rattles off statistics: nine of the top 20 slots in last year's compilation album chart were claimed by Ministry products, with Chilled 1991-2008 the bestseller and artists Basshunter and Sash each selling more than a quarter of a million copies.

Ministry is the number-one seller of digital downloads in the UK, averaging 10,000 a week, and the company accounts for five per cent of the entire UK album market.

In addition it organised more than 700 events last year, at the main club but also at licensed offshoots around the world and on tours.

This year, the group, now renamed MSHK, after it bought Hed Kandi from Guardian Media Group in 2006, will notch up total sales of £80 million.

"Turnover will be up 25-30 per cent. The recession is having no impact on us," says Presencer.

That's not to say there have never been problems. There was a period five years ago when the Ministry lost its way commercially.

Several of its record labels were shut or sold, it closed down its own Ministry magazine and sales across the board were falling.

A planned £150 million stock market flotation was hastily scrapped and the chief executive left.

Today, Ministry HQ in Gaunt Street - what was an old bus garage and the ground floor of the building next door - is a blur of activity.

Around 120 staff are hard at work. In the corner, in the sound booth, the A&Rs are meeting an artist; the Hed Kandi team is planning opening in Ibiza next month; new signings are being made and parties put together. Ministry radio is on air.

From different areas of the large, open-plan room, there are different bass beats discreetly coming out of computers and sound boxes.

In the centre of it all is the engaging, enthusiastic Presencer. His desk is literally in the middle and he's easily identifiable: he's the one in a suit. He's also among the oldest.

Now 38, he grew up in Watford and went to Southampton University, where he studied acoustics and was the university ents officer. He's also a musician himself, on the piano.

After graduating, he worked for a small label in Notting Hill, then joined Warner Music in the mid-Nineties. A few years later he entered the Ministry as marketing officer for its compilation albums. He became CEO last year.

James Palumbo, the club's founder and owner of the group, took a back seat, leaving the day-to-day running to Presencer.

"We speak regularly. James leaves us to get on with it," he says. "James is the chairman of the board." How often does the board meet? "It meets when James and I choose to meet," says Presencer, laughing.

Seriously, he adds, "James imparted a huge amount of knowledge to me. He's been doing it for 18 years. That's one of the things that distinguishes us from the others. I started here in marketing; Steve, our chief operations officer, began as an assistant here in the early Nineties; Michael, who was the book-keeper in the club, is now our finance director; Ian, who was in ad sales, is our marketing director."

There are always younger people coming in. "We talk to our audience. We try and understand what they're thinking about the club and about music. That's what make us different - our culture.

"Every department works with every other department. Eighty per cent of our staff are in by 8am every morning - you won't get that anywhere else in our industry."

The one quiet area during the day is the club itself. The surfaces are clean and spotless, ready for the evening. "It's the most famous nightclub in the history of the world, ever!" declares Presencer to an empty dancefloor.

When I say steady on, what about Studio 54 for starters, he is mocking. "If you went to Bolton, knocked on a door and said 'Ministry of Sound or Studio 54?', what do you think they would say? They'd say what's Studio 54? The Ministry is the only one they will have heard of."

It's true that while other clubs have been and gone, his has remained. With the recent demise of Turnmills and The Cross, the Ministry of Sound is the only one left standing of London's Nineties superclubs.

Of the current crop, there's Fabric but that's more underground, and Matter, the giant club at the O2 Arena. "It's a long way from the centre of town to Greenwich," says Presencer. "It's over £40 in a taxi."

What has sustained the Ministry, he maintains, is the "attention to detail. We've got the best DJs in the world, the best sound system in the world. We want people to come here and feel 'wow'! We haven't seen the other clubs off, they've seen themselves off".

The other big companies, he claims, have "traditionally not been very good at having a dialogue with their customers.

"We're always focused on the experiences we give people. We create the moments people live for. When you stand on this dancefloor, you get an experience you don't get anywhere else.

"You can go to places with bouncers on the door, sticky floors and when it's time to go, the staff are rude, or you can come here, where the staff are friendly and polite, the drinks are good and the sound system is unbelievable".

There is no chance, he says, of dance music disappearing. "In the club, it is ever-evolving and that spills over into the albums we produce." You can keep your live singers and guitarists - Presencer is not interested. "I love dance music, I always have and always will - I'm part of the generation that was lucky enough to be around when dance music first started happening."

These days he lives in quiet Buckinghamshire with his wife, Shelly, and three young children. But he still goes to the club nights when he can - he was last there two weeks ago.

"I love this place, I love this job. I'll be here at the very end - they'll have to carry me out."

The best 20 Bank Holiday club nights ...

 

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