John Summit Talks Building His Label, Losing $1M at MSG and Planning His Upcoming Arena Tour
Categoria: Musica
On Billboard On the Record, John Summit talks about building his sought-after label Experts Only, expanding his events internationally and the increasing arms race of dance music visuals.
Por Billboard | 27/05/2026
John Summit is currently one of the biggest names in dance music. Earlier this year, he released his second album, CTRL ESCAPE, teaming up with The Chainsmokers and Feid to take his original tech house sound to new places. While he’s been working on new music, Summit has simultaneously been building one of dance music’s hottest labels, Experts Only, which has topped Beatport’s global label chart a number of times since its founding in 2022 and released music from acts like Devault, Layton Giodani, Max Styler . Related Billboard’s Dance Power Players 2026: Executive List Revealed 'The Breakfast Club' to Stream Live Daily, Commercial-Free on Netflix: 'The Future Belongs to Those Who Can See What's Possible' Woman Accused of Attempting to Murder Rihanna to Face Mental Health Competency Test As is common in the electronic music world, Experts Only is perhaps just as much of an event business as it is a label. Those releasing songs through Experts Only are often invited to participate in showcases, like its 60,000-person festival on Randall’s Island in New York City, or its ski weekenders in Vail and Whistler. Still, Summit feels like he has “a lot of heads to turn.” Later this year, he will have the opportunity to do just that — he’s a headliner at Lollapalooza in Chicago, a rare feat for a dance act and a personal win for Summit, who grew up near Chicago. In October, he’s embarking on an arena tour in support of CTRL ESCAPE with 20 dates spanning Canada to California. On the latest episode of On the Record, Summit talks about building his record label, how he’s planning his upcoming arena tour and why the dance music industry operates differently from any other genre. Watch or listen to the full episode of On the Record below on YouTube, or check it out on other podcast platforms here . Read a segment of the conversation below. Something I find really interesting about the dance music industry is that it’s very singles-driven, and people tend to hop around different labels. You did this too in your early years, jumping from Repopulate Mars, Defected Records and more. What was your strategy in aligning with these different labels? A lot of labels throw events, too, which I wanted to do as well. I always wanted to play in Europe, and the only way to do that that I could think of [was] by playing Defected Croatia and their events in the U.K. and everything like that. To get on these parties and get their community to know you, you have to release music with them. In dance music there’s so many artist-run labels. I think [my label] Experts Only has its own community now, too. We have a festival with like 60,000 people in New York this year, so yeah, it’s becoming a huge thing, which is awesome. Tell me about all the events you’re doing now as part of Experts Only . We did the first New York festival on Randall’s Island last