The wages of spin
Superstar Scottish DJ signs a £200 MILLION residency deal at Las Vegas (and he’ll only work 5 nights a month!)
HE has already established himself as the highest-paid DJ in the world.
Now Calvin Harris is about to add to his fortune by signing a Las Vegas residency deal worth an astonishing £200 million.
Harris, 33, was made an offer he could not refuse by the Omnia nightclub, part of the legendary Caesar’s Palace casino.
The deal means he will continue his weekly shows there until 2020.
The Scots-born music star, who is nominated at tonight’s Grammy awards, will also be able to moonlight by headlining music festivals around the world, producing and recording. A new album is due this year.
The bumper Vegas pay deal puts him on a par with Sinatra, Elvis Presley and Celine Dion, all of whom were enticed into long residencies at famous Sin City nightspots.
Announcing the news on Instagram, Harris wrote: ‘Extended my residency until 2020! Fridays at OMNIA Nightclub in Las Vegas. My first show of 2018 is March 9 for their three-year anniversary. #CalvinFridays.’
Including merchandising and sponsorship deals, Harris will earn £1.15 million per show, or approximately £625,000 per hour.
It’s a far cry from the minimumwage job he had stacking shelves for M&S in his hometown, Dumfries, a little over a decade ago where he ‘rotated the sandwiches and moved salmon’. He escaped shelf-stacking and another job in a fish factory when he recorded his debut album I Created Disco in his bedroom on a £200 Amiga home computer.
His Vegas contract, which requires him to do five shows a month, will make him one of the highest-paid music entertainers in history. During his rise to fame Harris – real name Adam Wiles – has also transformed himself from gangly teenager to underwear model for Emporio Armani.
According to Forbes magazine, he raked in £34 million between June 2016 and June 2017. Harris lives in a £4 million mansion in the Hollywood Hills that boasts five bathrooms, a pool and recording studio.
He splashed out £3 million last year for a home in Somerset for his parents, Pamela and David, who moved there from Dumfries.
He has joked about how his parents think he makes easy money after he flew them out to Vegas to see him in action at Omnia. He said: ‘My family came out. It was hilarious – my mum, my dad, my brother. My mum said, “It’s ridiculous, you get on this plane, fiddle about with the seats, joke around, play records and they pay you all this money”.
‘In a nutshell, as far as the gigs go, that is it. But I wrote a few good tunes to get to that point. She likes some of my stuff.’
Nick McCabe, chief executive of the Hakkasan group that owns the Omnia club, praised the ‘electronic dance icon’, saying he had delivered ‘electrifying performances to tourists and Las Vegas locals alike over the last five years’.
In 2007 Harris released I Created Disco, having hits with Acceptable In The 80s and Girls.
His second album, Ready For The Weekend, went to No 1 and he has regularly topped the charts since then.
In 2012, he made history by becoming the first artist to have eight top-10 singles from one studio album, 18 Months, beating the record held by Michael Jackson.
Tonight, all eyes will be on Harris and ex-girlfriends Taylor Swift and Rita Ora, both of whom are likely to be close by when he attends the Grammy awards ceremony, being hosted by James Corden at Madison Square Garden in New York.
‘It’s ridiculous ... they pay you all this money’