With the star of dance music sky-rocketing higher than ever in the United States at the moment even from our dusty little island on the other side of the world we’ve seen that the so-called ‘Sin City’ neon hub of Las Vegas has become a stomping ground for international DJs and dance acts of the highest stature with everyone from Paul Oakenfold, Swedish House Mafia and David Guetta setting up shop on the strip, not to mention ex-LA festival Electric Daisy Carnival migrating to the Nevada territory. Hell, even Tiesto named it his #1 place to play in the world with his monthly residency at the Hard Rock Hotel.

But just how important is Las Vegas to the greater EDM community? Apparently very important as word out of the recent electronic-centric International Music Summit in Ibiza seems to indicate that Vegas is close to overtaking the Spanish party island in terms of big dance bookings if it hasn’t already secured the dubious title of being the ‘new Ibiza’.

As reported by The Guardian, this year’s Ibiza summit saw a gathering of dance music’s big players, with the Vegas boom being a particularly present topic of conversation.

“No one puts on a show like Vegas – they take it to the next level. I wanted to get in there among it,” Pete Tong said of his move to Vegas for a residency at the gold dusted Encore casino. “Something has changed in Vegas recently and electronic music is really starting to take hold. The casinos used to use people like Sinatra and Dean Martin to get people in, but it has evolved and now dance music is the thing.”

What stands out from the summit’s discussion on Vegas though is that, as Swedish House Mafia manager Amy Thomson puts it, “money talks” and DJs listen.

“There is no love [in Las Vegas] for growing credible music, they are interested in what sells, and right now that is electronic music,” she explained. “Money talks in Vegas. If your act was not bringing in big takings then they wouldn’t be getting booked. When people go to a show they might buy a drink when they go in and one during the show. When people come to our shows they don’t come to watch, they come to rave for two to eight hours buying drinks at $20 dollars a pop.”

So has Vegas supplanted Ibiza as the new dance music capital of the world? Nobody from the IMS conference was as bold to say so, especially with the Ibiza season and all those contracts about to begin. We’d find it hard to believe that any place could knock Ibiza off the top spot. But then again Las Vegas has a DJ Pauly D residency…so clearly Vegas > Ibiza.