Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat: Pasquale Rotella Celebrates 30 Years Of Insomniac

Pasquale Rotella still sees the dust from the bullets hitting the ground behind him. He sprinted across the field, running towards the hills and hoping he wouldn’t get killed.

“Ravers at the time were a little different than now,” he tells Pollstar.

The year was 1999, and Rotella – the founder/CEO of Insomniac – was throwing an early edition of Nocturnal, now America’s longest-running rave, at the Cahuilla Indian Reservation in Riverside County, California. He was expecting 40,000 ravers, and the early arrivals drove up to find a tense situation with the tribe. Rather than going through the tribal council, Rotella had instead knocked on the doors of each family with a bag of around $70,000 and told them the money was theirs as long as he could use their land. “It might’ve been more money than they made all year in that one weekend,” Rotella says.

Pasquale Rotella notes that the atmosphere was “chaotic,” with fans making their own roads into the property.

“They started battling, it was like ravers against the Native Americans. … It was really bad,” Rotella says. “The sheriffs were there, but they couldn’t get involved because it was a reservation. And when they started shooting at me, they started arresting the more aggressive culprits.”

The show managed to go on, and Rotella made it to the morning.

Despite bumps along the way, Insomniac now stands as one of the most successful promotion companies — not only in electronic music, but across the entire industry. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Insomniac, which Rotella first started at age 18 by throwing a rave in a South Central Los Angeles warehouse that attracted around 300 attendees.

HARD Summer Music Festival, which Insomniac started running in 2013 as part of a partnership with Live Nation (which took over the festival the year before, and which Rotella began overseeing fully in 2017), ranked No. 2 on Pollstar’s 2023 Year-End Top 20 Worldwide Festival Grosses chart, selling 75,000 tickets and grossing $29.9 million. Electric Daisy Carnival Mexico landed at No. 10 on the same chart, selling 279,894 tickets and grossing $16.4 million. In 2019, EDC Las Vegas became the largest dance music festival in the world with 465,000 attendees over its three days, according to Insomniac.

In 2013, Live Nation acquired a 50% stake in Insomniac. Rotella appreciates the partnership, calling it an “entrepreneur’s dream.” He says he partnered with LN because of the company’s structure and how it’s decentralized, allowing him to keep his hands on every aspect of his brand while using their resources.

“He’s always had a vision,” says James “Disco” Donnie Estopinal, who teamed up with Rotella numerous times throughout the ’90s and ’00s. “I respect the hell out of him. He came up in a very dog-eat-dog market; it wasn’t easy. They were trying to kill each other. I mean, in the L.A. market, the competition was next level. But sometimes, competition makes people strive to be better.”

The Los Angeles market was cutthroat when Rotella first started. There was Paul Tollett, president and CEO of Goldenvoice, who once worked with Rotella on Organic in 1996, one of the first successful raves to take place in Southern California in those early years. Gary Richards — the founder and former CEO of Hard Events (which Live Nation acquired in 2012), who put on the first EDC in 1991 before allegedly allowing Rotella to take over the brand via a verbal contract (a point that has been in contention for years and made headlines after Richards and Stephen Enos filed a trademark suit in 2015 with both parties jointly agreeing to a dismissal in 2017, according to court records) and DJs as Destructo — was another successful promoter.

“I started Insomniac because I was going out every weekend,” Rotella says. “And all the parties had stopped at one point because the L.A. Riots had happened (in 1992). All the promoters were pretty fly-by-night. There’s a lot of rivalries going on. They would call the cops on one another; they were all illegal. … I tried going out to parties after the L.A. Riots happened, and everything fell short. So, that’s when I started Insomniac on Fridays. And the reason for doing it every Friday was the consistency of going out every weekend. Then it built this community of people that would go out. Insomniac was a weekly party, but it wasn’t in a club or anything. It was in a different warehouse every Friday, so it was a different adventure every week.”

In those early days, cities were less willing to allow raves. The culture was closely associated with drug use, particularly MDMA, which gave the events a bad rep.

“I’m blown away by how different it is,” Rotella says. “It was so bad. I couldn’t even get a legal venue back in the day. The way I got to the LA Sports Arena and the Coliseum was such a roundabout way. I had to bring in this company that designed theme parks called Landmark Entertainment. I went to them and brought them as a partner solely to get the venue. I was probably still a teenager or in my early 20s. And I did look young. I dressed like a raver; I had baggy pants and overalls. This guy looked like I look now, he had gray hair and a beard, and he went in there and represented his company and I was able to get in there through that way.”

Rotella’s run at the Coliseum continued for 13 years until 2010 when a 15-year-old fan died because of complications of ischemic encephalopathy due to MDMA intoxication at EDC. In 2012, Rotella and five others were indicted on 29 counts related to the booking of the LA Coliseum, including bribery, embezzlement, conspiracy and conflict of interest, according to the Los Angeles Times. All felony charges were dismissed in 2016, with Rotella entering a plea bargain for a “single misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charge.” Rather than call it quits, Rotella doubled down. He began working more closely with the municipalities he threw events in, even helping pave the way for show safety. In 2022, he partnered with End Overdose to provide festivalgoers with Narcan and other medical aids to prevent overdoses.

Following the 2010 edition of EDC, the Coliseum temporarily banned raves and Rotella relocated EDC to the Las Vegas Speedway in 2011. This year marked his return to the Coliseum with HARD.

“That was a great feeling, coming full circle,” Rotella says “That was just a very personal experience. I was very alone for some of that. I even went to trial having to deal with that stuff. And, to sit back and look at the Coliseum and think about being there again after going through all that, it was a good feeling.” More Insomniac events, including GRAVE at The Torch, a co-promotion with Emo Nite, are also planned to take place at the venue.

However, Rotella says Las Vegas is now EDC’s home; the festival has grown too big to take place anywhere else.

Following bad press from EDC at the Coliseum, Rotella worried the situation might be toxic and Vegas wouldn’t work out.

“Back then, it was a huge risk,” he says. “Now, it seems obvious. Of course. There are hotels there. But I didn’t know if it was going to work out, and I didn’t know if people were going to come. There wasn’t really any way to gauge how it would do. … And then people showed up, so that showed the strength of the scene and the community.”

Rotella’s vision for his events continues to outdo itself. Estopinal recalls a period when Rotella lived in an apartment and drove a beat-up car but wanted to spend $5,000 to hire a helicopter to drop daisies on fans attending EDC.

“He’s always had that vision and the work ethic,” Estopinal says. “He’s out there passing out flyers. He’s trying to outwork all the other promoters, talking to people and creating a personal relationship with them where, instead of becoming fans of the party or the name of EDC, they would become fans of him, as the promoter.”

Ryan Raddon, better known as popular DJ and music producer Kaskade, emphasizes Rotella’s efforts toward furthering the brand and providing a spectacular experience, best on display during EDC.

“It’s mind-boggling. It blows me away every time I play EDC. I just can’t believe it … Every year I scratch my head and think there’s no way this can get bigger and become more jaw-dropping,” Raddon says. “Like, what are they going to do next? Where can this continue to go? But every year, sure enough, I show up and I’m like, this is insane.”

Gerry Gerrard, who had been the agent for Chemical Brothers, Paul Oakenfold and other pioneering dance artists as well as founder and CEO of The Chaotica Booking Agency before selling to the William Morris Agency in 2008, also notes how much dance music changed after EDC was brought to Las Vegas.

“It blew my mind when I walked into that place,” Gerrard says. “I couldn’t believe how huge and extravagant it was. Once he moved to Vegas, that’s when it all took off. Being able to do shows at the LA Sports Arena with 6,000 people was pretty good. But going up to the hundreds of thousands that he does for Electric Daisy, to me, it’s more about the event … People buy their tickets before they even know who’s going to be playing.”

Insomniac remains one of the most reliable promoters for artists to work with. Anton Zaslavski, who performs as Zedd, says he finds security in returning to Rotella’s shows.

“Having played many festivals that have been grossly mismanaged and poorly organized, I grew to appreciate the craft and care Insomniac puts into every event,” Zaslavski says. “You can tell how much every single one means to Pasquale, and you can feel that, as an artist, from the moment you arrive to the end of a set. Witnessing Insomniac’s growth is incredible but not shocking due to the care they pour in.”

Rotella notes that the experience on the reservation has remained at the top of his mind when dealing with complications. He admits he likely could have postponed or canceled the show and cites it as an example of a time when he could’ve gone about things much differently.

Rotella hoped to have one of the first festivals back after COVID shut down live events with EDC Las Vegas scheduled in May 2021. Instead, just four weeks before EDC Las Vegas was supposed to take place, Rotella broke the news that the event was being postponed to the fall because there was uncertainty about the local population’s ability to meet county vaccination requirements.

“Although it comes with your failures being out there and exposed and taking it on the chin, I think that’s OK,” he says. “I feel good about that. I can sleep at night with that as long as people know your intentions and know that you care.”

Tijs Michiel Verwest, better known as Tiësto, says the attentiveness Rotella takes in his relationship with fans is core to the company’s success.

“Insomniac has never lost their touch with dance music fans and the community, and have continued to improve the experience they create for the community,” Verwest says. “They are experts in maintaining the DNA of rave and dance culture and have their ticket buyers in mind when planning each event. The goal is always to give the crowd the best experience of their lives – and none of that would be possible without Pasquale.”

That attentiveness has allowed Insomniac to grow into the massive brand it is today. With its 30th anniversary celebrations, the company has launched EDSea, a four-day cruise that took place around the Bahamas Nov. 4-8 in partnership with Vibee and Sixthman on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Joy with eight stages. They hosted more than 525,000 fans over EDC Las Vegas’ three days May 19-21, produced over 40 festivals, 200 concerts and 1,500 club nights with an estimated $1 billion in economic impact from their festivals alone, according to Insomniac. Rotella is also gearing up for the inaugural edition of Forever Midnight, a New Year’s Eve festival that takes place in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas on Dec. 30-31. Rotella says while most festivals take several years to go from conception to execution, Forever Midnight had a faster turn-around, with the idea first coming up in 2022.

“Managing dual-city festivals like Forever Midnight involves unique logistics and planning,” Rotella says. “We divided our team to ensure the needs of both events are met while upholding the Insomniac standard. Coordinating talent playing in both cities was like solving a complicated puzzle, with each piece having emotions and desires that need satisfying. The most challenging aspect of simultaneous shows is that I can’t personally rave at both, but I’m optimistic about cloning myself by 2030.”

Next year, Insomniac will return to Chicago after a long hiatus in the area. Beyond Wonderland will take place at Northerly Island June 1-3, continuing Insomniac’s expansion of their Beyond brand. The festival began as a spring sister event to Nocturnal.

“I’ve wanted us to return to Chicago the day after our last show there over a decade ago,” Rotella says. “The key was finding the right local partner, and we’re super excited to have recently partnered with AURIS, the Chicago promoter who created Arc Music Festival. We’re humbled by the response to our first-ever Beyond Wonderland there. We can feel the energy build as the show gets closer, and we couldn’t be more grateful to bring a unique experience to the city.”

Rotella still isn’t done. Like everyone else in the music industry, he hopes Insomniac will debut at Sphere. The venue seems a natural fit, as his brand has become synonymous with Las Vegas over the last 12 years.

“We have been involved with speaking with them from the very, very beginning,” Rotella says. “Before they were open, when they were filming and experimenting with the cameras that were picking up the content for Sphere. They filmed it at EDC. I mean, this goes back five, seven years ago. So, we’ve been working with them for a while and have absolutely been exploring ideas and thoughts with them. There’s nothing definite, but it would be really cool to do something there.”

Rotella, 49, still has a hard time wrapping his head around all Insomniac has achieved since he first began the brand at the age of 19. He walks around each one of his shows, taking in the whole experience the same as all his fans and artists.

“I try to make it so I’m not that busy anymore,” he says. “Because I build these events so I can enjoy them.”