This week, Untitled Group announced an impressive milestone, revealing they had sold a total of 630,000 tickets across its events and tours in 2024 – up from the 500,000 they sold in 2023.

While this is a respectable figure by any metric, it’s all the more of an accomplishment given Untitled’s status as “Australia's largest independently-owned music and events company”. Delivering festivals such as Beyond The Valley, Pitch Music & Arts, Wildlands, Grapevine Gathering, For The Love and Ability Fest, and providing a platform for huge names from both at home and abroad, it’s no wonder that they’re doing so well.

But as co-founder Christian Serrao explains, such lofty heights were never expected in their earliest days. 

“When we first launched, we started in nightclubs, and that's where it all began,” Serrao explains. “We began running a nightclub called Tree House for about a year and a half, but then we very quickly moved into launching Anyway Club, which was at the old Metro Palace Theatre.

“We were running that with about 3,000 people every week, and that was where the grand plan of starting music festivals really began.”

First launched in 2014, Untitled Group was formed by Serrao alongside Filippo Palermo, Michael Christidis, and Nicholas Greco. Soon, the company began to diversify their focus and a decade later, they’d expanded to a team of 77 staff members and a strong reputation in the Aussie music scene.

Despite where they find themselves now, Serrao is the first to admit that while ambition was high in the earliest days, expectations were modest. They’d begun with the goal of starting a festival, which they realised with Beyond The Valley, though it was the explosive growth they experienced out of COVID where Untitled Group “as a company really started to take shape”.

As Serrao notes, it’s their flagship festival – Beyond The Valley – that also provides him with his biggest highlights, professionally and personally.

“The first time we ran Beyond The Valley, it definitely didn’t come easy,” he explains. “It was a very difficult event for us and highly stressful, but at the same time, that moment standing there at the countdown and seeing thousands of people in front of us at our first festival was really a moment for us and solidified that I really enjoy what I do and I love what we have created.

“Then a full circle moment would come for us with Beyond The Valley at Barunah Plains,” he adds. “The first time we did it there was back in 2022 when we had just come off a couple of years of COVID, we’d moved from Lardner Park to a new site and it was a new beginning for the brand. We had 35,000 people in front of us, and I was thinking, ‘Look what we have created here and what we have done over these last few years’.”

It’s moments like this that make it all worthwhile for Serrao, though the recent announcement of record sales for Untitled Group undoubtedly serve as a testament that the company – which had emerged from humble origins – is on the right track with what they’re doing.

“It brings me a great sense of pride for what we've been able to create over this last decade,” Serrao says. “We started out in the clubs and I believe what we have done is created an amazing community and culture around music lovers and the annual growth that we're seeing within this company has just been incredibly humbling.”

Obviously it all means they’re doing something right, but for Serrao, there’s no specific key to their success. While it definitely comes down to careful curation and planning with their events, it’s also about ensuring they’re only providing experiences that they would want to attend as a punter.

“I would say our determination to always create unforgettable experiences, no matter whether it's a small event or a large event like Beyond The Valley,” he says. “We have like an obsession, I would say, with ensuring that those who attend our events have the time of their lives. 

“We have a deep root and connection to electronic and club culture, so I think we've created a really engaged community of music lovers that just continue wanting to attend our events.”

With 630,000 ticket sales across a calendar year, what does Serrao take away from these figures? Is it Australia’s strength as a musical market? Proof positive of the genres that punters are drawn to? In fact, it’s a combination of them all.

“My key takeaway would be, and obviously this is kind of the space we play in, but Australia has a real passion for electronic music,” he explains. “Australia is actually in the top three markets for dance music listeners, and there's no surprise for us with that because you see some of the Aussie exports, we've got like Dom Dolla, RÜFÜS DU SOL, and FISHER.

“We're a global leader when it comes to electronic music and that's a big focus for us as a business.”

Dom Dolla’s success for the company is noted as well. Of those 630,000 tickets sold in 2024, 170,000 of them – almost 27% – come from Dom Dolla’s Australian tour. In fact, that’s the highest amount ever sold for an Australian electronic artist.

Additionally, Untitled Group have also undertaken some expansions when it comes to the likes of events as well. While Ability Fest found itself debuting in Brisbane, the Australian Open's AO Live shows have also expanded, this year featuring Kesha, Armand Van Helden, Kaytranada, and Benson Boone in its sold-out lineup.

That isn’t, however, to say that Untitled Group are going to keep on expanding just because they can. Rather, they’re viewing their successes as positives, while still maintaining a sense of caution so as to ensure the success of the company into the future.

“We're not growing for the sake of growing,” Serrao asserts. “We will always be taking an annual pulse on the market and each of our festival brands.

“We’ve had a pretty explosive growth over the last couple of years, while we will be expanding the likes of Wildlands and the capacities of events like Beyond The Valley, we also won't be just popping up new shows in every state just for the sake of it.”

Interestingly as well, these huge figures instill a sense of confidence within Untitled, which would be a rarity given the recent live music landscape in Australia has seen numerous cancellations, and events folding due to a lack of ticket sales. 

Though Serrao acknowledges the difficulties faced by the industry, he’s also confident that there’s a positive future on the cards.

“I think it's definitely been really upsetting to see the recent cancellations of festivals, but I also don't think we should be concerned about the industry as a whole,” Serrao says. 

“We're seeing record crowds attending our shows and people's interest in music is always changing, sas long as we continue to adapt to what our fans want to see, I actually believe our industry is going to continue to thrive.”

Of course, the question now becomes, ‘what’s next?’ With such an achievement reached by Untitled Group ten years into their career, one would assume that expansion and growth is their key, though Serrao notes those only make sense for the company if the audience appetite, market response, and other factors tell them it’s a smart move.

That said, this March will see them working on the Pitch Music & Arts, with a tour from RÜFÜS DU SOL set for November, and more tours for acts like Rudimental, The Kooks, Groove Armada, and Mallrat also on the way.

Serrao, of course, isn’t keen to let any huge news slip when it comes to Untitled Group’s plans for the coming year – or even the coming decade – but he’s positive about what’s to come.

“We have invested a lot over the last couple of years – especially in our touring arms – so there are some big major shows to be coming up in the next 12 months that you should keep your eyes on,” he urges.