Website Insomniac.com Founder Pasquale Rotella Type of business Private | CEO Pasquale Rotella (1993–) Founded 1993 | |
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Industry Concert tours, event production, nightclub operation Key people Pasquale Rotella (founder) Products EDMBiz conference, EDM festivals, music publishing Divisions Insomniac Records, Bassrush, Basscon, Dreamstate Headquarters Los Angeles, California, United States Profiles | ||
Insomniac Events is an American tour promoter focusing primarily on electronic music events. It organizes a number of major dance music festivals, including its flagship Electric Daisy Carnival, along with other events such as Beyond Wonderland, Nocturnal Wonderland, and also jointly organized the Together as One festival with rival promoter Go Ventures prior to 2011. Insomniac also organizes the EDMBiz conference (an industry event first held in 2012 to coincide with EDC in Las Vegas, in a similar fashion to the Winter Music Conference and the Ultra Music Festival). Insomniac is involved of the operation of two Los Angeles nightclubs—Create (in partnership with SBE, built on the site of the former Vanguard Hollywood) and Exchange L.A. Insomniac also organizes drum and bass and dubstep-oriented events under the brand Bassrush, Hardstyle events under the brand Basscon and trance festivals under the brand Dreamstate.
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Overview and partnerships
By contrast to other promoters, Insomniac and its founder Pasquale Rotella places a larger emphasis on fan experiences during its events, as opposed to focusing on profits and ticket sales; Rotella has contended that music festivals do not require "big acts who sell out arenas", going as far as to praise the annual Burning Man festival for being an event with "no talent" at all.
In June 2013, Insomniac announced a number of partnerships; including one with Dick Clark Productions to produce a dance music awards show, and a major "creative partnership" with Live Nation that would allow Insomniac to take advantage of Live Nation's resources, while still retaining autonomy and creative control over its events. While specifics of the deal were not revealed, Rotella emphasized that the deal was not an acquisition, as had been speculated.
Insomniac Records
In May 2014, Insomniac announced the formation of Insomniac Records, an EDM record label created in partnership with Interscope Geffen A&M. The label will aim to attract both "undiscovered" and "established" producers; Arty was announced as the first artist to be signed to the label.