Robert Sillerman, founder of SFX Entertainment, has died, Billboard reports and Sillerman’s lawyer Sanford Philip Rosen confirmed to Pitchfork. According to Billboard, Sillerman died of a respiratory illness. He was 71.
Sillerman consolidated multiple U.S. promotion companies in the 1990s. In 2000, he sold SFX’s concert business to Clear Channel in a multi-billion deal; Clear Channel ultimately turned the acquisition into Live Nation. He relaunched SFX in 2012 and became one of the key financiers of EDM festivals. The business declined, and in 2016, SFX declared bankruptcy. This year, he was ordered to pay $179,000 in a securities fraud case.
