When the party starts with five minutes of advertising

The concert was free. But just before John Summit took the stage, the screens lit up to broadcast five minutes of advertising. Logos, slogans, perfectly calibrated visuals. A moment of waiting where the warm-up is reserved for a brand.

It’s not a scandal, and it’s not even new. Electronic music, like all popular cultures, has always been tied to sponsors. Without brands, many festivals simply wouldn’t exist. Without partnerships, some clubs wouldn’t survive. That’s not where the problem lies. The question is elsewhere: when advertising becomes impossible to ignore, when it imposes itself as a mandatory sequence and is integrated into the very ritual of the party.

“If it’s free, you’re the product”

The phrase is well known and often repeated with cynicism, or sometimes with lucidity. When entry is free, someone is paying on your behalf. And that someone expects a return: (visibility, attention, data, brand association).

In this framework, advertising is no longer a discreet form of funding. It becomes a direct trade-off. Your time, your gaze, your immersion are the currency.

What raises questions is not the existence of sponsorship, but the way it inserts itself into the experience. The party is meant to be a space of rupture, a moment where you disconnect from the constant flow of the outside world. When the first thing you see before a concert is an imposed advertisement, that promise of disconnection begins to crack.

A question of ethics, not purity

It would be too easy to oppose a “pure” party to a “sold-out” one. That opposition doesn’t hold up against economic reality. But not all brands are equal. Not all partnerships tell the same story.

Collaborating with a brand is an editorial choice. It means agreeing to associate a scene, an artist, a crowd with certain values, practices, and images. Some brands have already been the target of boycotts, whether for their environmental impact, political positions, or production conditions. Others invest in culture without ever being held accountable.

The question then becomes simple, but uncomfortable: who do we agree to collaborate with, and why?

Not everyone can say no

Not everyone has the luxury of refusing. Emerging artists, independent promoters, precarious collectives don’t always have a choice. Saying no to a brand can mean cancelling an event, giving up on paying a team properly, or simply not existing at all. Yet some manage to do it very well.

This reality prevents any simplistic moral reading. The issue is not to point fingers at those who accept partnerships, but to question the structures that make these compromises necessary.

When advertising becomes intrusive

There is a fundamental difference between a logo on a poster or a screen, a discreet booth on a site, and an imposed advertising sequence just before a live set. In the latter case, advertising no longer supports the party; it cuts through it. It becomes part of the show.

And that’s where questions need to be asked. Because the audience doesn’t just come to consume music. They come looking for a collective experience, a moment of suspension. Being confronted with advertising in that space gives the feeling that even the last refuges have become exploitable surfaces.

The specific case of alcohol as a regulatory blind spot

The issue becomes even more sensitive when it comes to alcohol brands, which are omnipresent in clubs and festivals. Historically, their financial support has allowed many scenes to survive. The problem is therefore not their existence, but the way they occupy space. In France, the Évin law strictly regulates alcohol advertising in traditional media. Yet these limits largely disappear in digital and cultural environments. On YouTube, Boiler Room has been sponsored by Ballantine’s for years. In clubs, logos, branded bars, and activations have become commonplace. The paradox is striking: advertising is banned on television to protect audiences, yet allowed at the very heart of spaces where alcohol is already omnipresent—sometimes even encouraging increased consumption in places meant to be refuges, bubbles outside the commercial world.

Not all brands, however, limit themselves to logo placement or visual overload. The Absolut Company, for example, has been developing formats for several years that aim to shift the cursor. With projects like Symbioses, the brand proposes transforming the energy of the crowd into a living artwork. It also funds talks and editorial content in collaboration with actors such as Rinse France, addressing topics rarely discussed in a sponsored context: the future of sound systems, listening quality, the future of festivals, etc. These initiatives do not make the approach neutral. Absolut remains an alcohol brand, with its own economic and symbolic interests. But they show that alternatives to frontal and invasive advertising do exist.

The real question, then, is not “brands or no brands,” but which brands, under what conditions, and with what level of respect for audiences. Broadcasting five minutes of advertising before a free concert, pushing consumption in spaces already saturated with alcohol, or turning the dancefloor into an advertising screen raises a genuine ethical issue. Conversely, supporting local scenes, funding cultural reflection, and investing in formats that enrich the experience rather than interrupt it opens up other possibilities. Sponsorship is not inherently evil. But without clear red lines, it ends up contaminating what the party was supposed to offer in the first place: a moment of breathing space, disconnection, and freely chosen freedom.

Are there alternatives?

More ethical solutions do exist, even if they are imperfect. Carefully chosen and transparent partnerships. Brands integrated without breaking the experience. Hybrid models combining accessible ticketing, cultural patronage, and public support. Smaller formats, less dependent on massive funding. Events that clearly assume their choices and constraints. And the one we prefer: when brands create real experiences for the audience. For example, Deezer’s immersive blind test.

No solution is magical. But they all start with a simple question: how far are we willing to go to finance the party, and at what point does the price to pay become too high?

An increasingly blurred boundary

Electronic music was born in marginal, DIY, sometimes clandestine spaces. It has grown, professionalized, and industrialized. This evolution is not a bad thing in itself, but it forces us to constantly redefine boundaries.

When a party begins with an advertisement, it’s not just a question of sponsorship. It’s a sign that the boundary between culture and marketing is becoming thinner and thinner. And that perhaps the real debate is not whether brands should exist, but how to preserve spaces where, for once, you don’t feel like you are the product.

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