In November 1996, the MASTERbeat CD series is born. In the late 90’s, long before iTunes and even the MP3, the majority of dance music played in nightclubs is released exclusively on 12” vinyl, making it difficult for the regular consumer to listen to dance club music at home, in the car, or at the gym. Although rare, CD players start entering the DJ booth but it’s difficult to find dance music on CD. The MASTERbeat CD series made full extended and unmixed club mixes available to both consumers and DJ’s alike. The series would grow to 30 releases over the next few years, spawning a loyal following and subscriber base at record stores around the country.
In 1998, Masterbeat: The Club was born at the world famous PROBE nightclub in Los Angeles. The concept of a night of music exclusively from the CD series turned into one of the biggest nights in PROBE’s history with lines around a city block to get in. The CLUB eventually moved to a bigger home at ORBIT (Circus Disco) before becoming a long running world tour and the precursor to Masterbeat’s successful dance events that continue today.
On the eve of Y2K, Masterbeat partnered with club and festival producer Jeffrey Sanker to launch the first Masterbeat New Year’s event, “Masterbeat Millennium”, in the Palm Springs Convention Center, with a live direct feed to Sanker’s simultaneous “Miami Millennium” in Miami. This became the first of Masterbeat’s New Year’s Eve events and the debut of the legendary “Countdown” to midnight. Masterbeat’s New Years Festival is now the largest and longest running continuous annual New Year’s event, moving from Palm Springs to its current home in Los Angeles, where the festival just celebrated its 25th anniversary.
The beat is back. After a brief hiatus from releasing CD’s, the Masterbeat dance mix CD is reborn with a new mixed compilation series, featuring a continuous mix of current club hits from famous DJ’s, along with releasing official souvenir CD’s for major festivals such as White Party, Winter Party, Gay Days, Black and Blue Festival and more.
Take Home the Music
Masterbeat’s popularity grows globally as it’s World Tour of highly produced club nights makes stops at major cities around the USA as well as London, Amsterdam, Rio de Janiero and more. The Masterbeat CD series continues and picks up national distribution in major retailers such as Virgin Megastore, Sam Goody and major department stores.
Mastebeat’s New Year’s celebrates record numbers as it takes over the Hollywood Palladium with a sold out event of over 4000 guests, with the first ever full length concert kicking off a dance event as Deborah Cox headlines the show with a full live band. In 2007 Masterbeat returns for an encore at Palladium building a full weekend of events including a sold out comedy performance by Pam Ann.
Download and Dance
The internet is in full swing and CD sales are declining. On the eve of the iPhone, major labels still struggle to properly release dance club music to the masses, and extended club mixes are unavailable on music services such as iTunes and Rhapsody. Music files are still protected with clunky DRM schemes. On January 1, 2008, Masterbeat launches the world’s first online music store carrying not only the full catalogs of every major label in uncompressed high quality unprotected WAV format, but the first to legally carry unreleased DJ and promotional extended mixes of music by major artists. In 2008, the only online music stores legally carrying the major labels were iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, and Masterbeat. Ironically Masterbeat becomes one of the number one retailers of classical music during this period, as enthusiasts realized the store was the only outlet carrying uncompressed music which was important for the classical genre enthusiast.
The store launched with simultaneous New Year’s event celebrations at over 30 clubs and festivals around the world, all playing the Masterbeat countdown to midnight.
Masterbeat goes public, then private again.
In an effort to secure additional funding and grow the online store, Masterbeat goes public as MSTO. The online music space becomes challenging as major record labels are still hesitant to embrace technology. Dance music enthusiasts are technologically savvy and have learned they can download their hits from various bootleg sites for free. In the summer of 2011, the board makes the difficult decision to cease operations of the online store after 3 years of operation. Masterbeat’s founder Brett Henrichsen takes the Masterbeat name private to spin off the successful event business, while MSTO’s corporate entity survives as a shell company for future investors in other businesses.
At the same time, Masterbeat’s New Year’s celebration celebrates it’s 10th Anniversary at it’s regular home, the Mayan nightclub in Los Angeles.
Masterbeat goes public, then private again.
In an effort to secure additional funding and grow the online store, Masterbeat goes public as MSTO. The online music space becomes challenging as major record labels are still hesitant to embrace technology. Dance music enthusiasts are technologically savvy and have learned they can download their hits from various bootleg sites for free. In the summer of 2011, the board makes the difficult decision to cease operations of the online store after 3 years of operation. Masterbeat’s founder Brett Henrichsen takes the Masterbeat name private to spin off the successful event business, while MSTO’s corporate entity survives as a shell company for future investors in other businesses.
At the same time, Masterbeat’s New Year’s celebration celebrates it’s 10th Anniversary at it’s regular home, the Mayan nightclub in Los Angeles.
In 2012, Masterbeat’s New Year’s returns for another sold out event at the Hollywood Palladium, produced in conjunction with Live Nation. Masterbeat has solidified itself as the leading club night in Los Angeles but also begins producing the official dance events for New York Pride. Over the next few years, Masterbeat’s events and DJ’s tour the globe with new events in Madrid, Tel Aviv, London, Mykonos, and Sao Paulo.
World Pride Comes to NYC.
To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall riots and the inception of gay “Pride”, New York City was selected to host World Pride. Masterbeat was proud to be the official dance partner of both World Pride and New York Pride, presenting 5 events at New York City’s finest venues, hosting over 10,000 guests, with superstar international DJ’s and special live performances, including the theme song One World performed by Inaya Day.
Masterbeat goes virtual.
In March of 2020 the world ground to a halt with the covid pandemic. No industry was affected more than live events, with worldwide bans on large gatherings that lasted well into 2021. While most brands and venues went dark, Masterbeat took it’s events virtual, producing 6 incredible livestreamed events over Zoom that hosted thousands dancing together virtually from their living and bedrooms. The events included live performances from top dance artists alongside Masterbeat’s resident and guest DJ’s. For Memorial Day weekend, Masterbeat produced “One World”, a benefit for the artists out of work from the pandemic with all proceeds being donated back to performers and DJ’s around the globe. Masterbeat’s annual New Year’s celebration also went virtual with 27/7 broadcasts of virtual events with over 15 DJ’s – the countdown continued, virtually.
As the pandemic ended a resurgence in dance events occurred, and Masterbeat returned to live production in full force, continuing the production of its long running series of events in Los Angeles, as well as official dance events for Winter Party in Miami and dance events for New York Pride, including a benefit tribute event for Peter Rauhofer benefitting cancer research and AmFAR.
