Inside the rise of Latin music: How LATAM culture is influencing festivals and live events worldwide

A decade ago, Latin music made up just 8 percent of global Spotify streams. Today, it accounts for more than a quarter of all listening worldwide. LATAM artists are rising to the top of the global music scene, and it’s more than just the sound that’s influencing the industry. Festivals and live concerts are being shaped by Latin culture, too. 

As CEO of Disguise, I don’t believe this shift has been accidental. For the past 20 years, our team has helped create technologies that power live concert visuals for artists like Rosalia, Bad Bunny, and Shakira, and have seen how these visuals are changing concert experiences for fans. As fewer high-budget music videos are greenlit, Latino artists are increasingly using LED graphics, laser shows, dancers and even pyrotechnics to add a visual dimension to their live music, and together, these immersive experiences are giving LATAM stars an even bigger global stage.

It's been incredibly exciting to see this trend emerge firsthand, to see an artist's origins and cultural experiences universalised at a time when imagery has never been more important, as evidenced by the billions who scroll through social media every day.  

A Festival of Firsts

From Rosalia’s tour, which has helped fuel a $3.4 billion Q4 revenue result for Sony Music Group, to Bad Bunny’s iconic Super Bowl performance, which drew in 4.157 billion views to become the most-watched Super Bowl Halftime Show performance of all time, LATAM perspectives are changing our concert and festival experiences like never before. 

This year’s Coachella was an especially important milestone. The festival was a Latino takeover, with key acts like Becky G, Paulina Rubio, Bizarap, Camilla Cabello, Nelly Furtado, Zulan, and many more. Then there was Karol G: the first Latino woman to ever headline the festival. We worked with media server operator Charly Camina, who used Disguise software and hardware to power the show and output visuals that honored both Colombian and Latino culture, as well as acknowledging Gloria Estefan’s contribution as the first Latina to make it in America. As a childhood fan of Gloria and her music, for me, being connected to this project was incredibly rewarding. 

Another artist who perfectly blended his music with visuals to showcase Latino culture was Junior H. For his Coachella set in 2025, Charly and his team successfully brought Junior H’s underground Latin trap aesthetic to the stage using Unreal Engine and Disguise Designer software. This allowed for synchronised cueing and triggering, so the operation of the show was in time with other elements like lighting and pyro. It also enabled Junior H to end his set with a showstopping visual: a huge Mexican flag waving on the main stage’s LED screen to unite thousands of fans.

The Future of Latin Music

When it comes to Latino culture influencing our concerts and festivals, I think what we’re seeing is just the beginning. Coachella showed everyone what was possible, and there are so many new and exciting LATAM artists emerging, particularly DJs and electronic artists.

At the same time, technologies like ours are getting both more cost-effective and more powerful. In the future, I believe this will lead to new possibilities, such as smaller LATAM DJs and artists performing with concert visuals that rival those of big pop stars. We’ll also likely see an increase in the use of real-time visuals at concerts, leading to more interactive audience experiences. A great example of this was when Charly Camina, the media server operator behind Bad Bunny’s tour, wrote a plugin that enabled him to integrate photos of the audience into the concert visuals live. This meant the audience could go from being passive viewers to an active part of the show, as they were integrated into it. 

These kinds of possibilities will help artists tell their stories in even more memorable ways. This will shape not just how we experience concerts and festivals, but also serve a deeper purpose: bringing visibility to underrepresented communities and celebrating their culture. There has never been a more important time for this, and I am proud to be a small part of helping artists take things even further – and to be watching, learning and evolving alongside them.

About Fernando Küfer
Fernando Küfer is CEO of Disguise, the visual experience platform behind some of the world’s most ambitious live events, concerts, festivals, theatre productions and broadcasts. Under his leadership, Disguise has expanded globally, supporting creatives and technical teams as they deliver large-scale visual experiences for artists including Rosalía, Bad Bunny, Shakira, Karol G and Junior H.

Originally from Argentina, Fernando brings both a personal connection to Latin culture and extensive international leadership experience to his role. Since joining Disguise, he has helped grow the company’s global presence, opening new locations around the world, and making advanced visual technology more accessible to artists, designers and production teams shaping the future of live entertainment.