Pasquale Rotella On EDC India

The bill for the premiere of Electric Daisy Carnival India includes Alesso, Afrojack, R3hab, Steve Aoki, Tommy Trash and Yellow Claw, as well as Indian DJs Anish Sood, Dualist Inquiry and Sickflip to name just a few. Pollstar spoke to Insomniac founder Pasquale Rotella to find out more.

What made you choose India? How has the live entertainment market – and in particular the market for electronic music – been developing there? What makes it unique?

I have always been attracted to the beautiful landscape and unique culture in India. It’s an exciting market to build a festival because of the long-standing passion for dance music there, which is only growing and evolving. There is a large population of avid festivalgoers and we look forward to offering them something they’ve never seen before. Goa has long been known as the Ibiza of India so our goal is to bring energy to a new region of this spectacular country.

Why Delhi?

The location and the surrounding areas in Delhi work for us. It is a bustling, beautiful city where we feel the people that live there will connect with the festival. We also found a great venue with land that can be utilized surrounding it. The city’s vibrant culture and history along with the easily accessible location, will give us the ability to enhance the entire festival experience for fans.

In what ways will India be represented?

We have about half of the lineup booked with local acts and well-known Indian artists like Nucleya and Zaeden. Dance music has become a staple in India and we want to support that. In addition to the talent, there will be a lot of local Indian influence and flavor spread around the grounds and as part of the overall experience. While we are bringing a true EDC to India, we love Indian culture and will integrate it in ways so that travelers can get a taste as well.

What is OML’s role?

We will be splitting responsibilities. OML has the local relationships and knowledge, while we bring the experience, the vision and culture that is EDC.

How many tickets do you reckon you can sell for the premiere? Will you sell through Front Gate?

We have already received a lot of positive feedback and excitement from fans in the region so we anticipate the festival to do well this first year. Like many of our other EDCs, it will continue to grow as the years go on. We hope to have 20,000 to 25,000 fans in 2016, with that number doubling or tripling in the future. Our goal is to create an incredible show and an amazing experience. We will not be selling tickets through Front Gate. Instead, we are using a ticket outlet that is more localized called Insider.in. Early bird passes are on sale now.

What made you chose the Buddh International Circuit?

I’m happy to say that we’ve chosen a venue I’m really excited about, which is a Formula 1 Track. We have already laid out the festival out on paper and we can’t wait to see it come to life. We’re very familiar with creating a unique experience at racetracks being that our largest festival EDC Las Vegas, is on a Speedway. It’s a huge blank canvas that we can’t wait to create magic on.