Insomniac Events Founder/CEO Pasquale Rotella was recently ranked number two on Rolling Stone’s 50 Most Important People in EDM list. The small company he founded back in 1993 is now host to the world’s largest dance music festival Electric Daisy Carnival Las Vegas. In addition Insomniac currently hosts about 11 major festival-styled events per year. Last year Live Music enabled Insomniac to go to new heights by buying 50% of the company for a reported cool $50 million. Interscope Records recently partnered with Insomniac to form Insomniac Records, Interscope’s first official dance music label. Pasquale Rotella’s achievements thus far run high, read on to get to know the EDM mastermind a lot better!
Pasquale is a huge Burning Man fan and has been going for 10 years. In an interview with Las Vegas City Life he said, “…I am an artist fan. Burning Man is organized and produced by the attendees — not the logistics, like bathrooms and stuff like that, but the art there is produced by the fans. So whatever form it might be in — music, graffiti art, sculpting, fire, art cars — if I see something that’s amazing out there … I will go after it. I want to have the best event I can. I want it to be memorable and incredible. And when I see something amazing, I’ll want to create our version of what it is. The art car thing is one of my favorite things. At Burning Man, I have three art cars of my own, and it’s like, do I want to do an art installation that stays in one spot, or do I want to build cars? I built three art cars. So I myself am a participant.”
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Back in the day Pasquale and his crew used locations such as deserts, banquet halls, storefronts, and malls as party venues. The best score was when he met a real estate agent who worked in L.A.’s downtown warehouse district. Pasquale paid him to get the keys to warehouses to host raves.
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Will.i.am and Pasquale are old friends since they were 15 years old at Palisades Charter High School. They used to go to raves together in the ’90s.
Pasquale used to hang out and break-dance on the Venice boardwalk when he was 8-9 yrs old. He wore ninja shoes to break better and even got his school to organize a battle when he was in 6th grade.
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EDC Vegas’s new wedding chapel was inspired by his own fairy-tale wedding to Holly Madison at Disneyland. In an interview with Vegas Seven he said, “Oh it definitely inspired me. For the longest time we’ve had people ask if they can propose on stage at our events, we’ve had wedding ceremonies by the lagoon at the NOS events center, and some couples have even bought their own tickets and created their own ceremonies among their friends. It’s all part of what makes these types of events so community based and interactive. So when I was going through that experience in my own life, I just knew I had to make it happen at EDC.”
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Kaskade DJed at his wedding.
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“Jam On It” by Newcleus was the first dance-music song he loved when he was 10 or 11 years old.
Pasquale bought funky, colored Pumas and Adidas from sneaker enthusiast DJ AM who sold them out of the trunk of his car back in the day.
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Pasquale is a vinyl-lover and used to DJ under the moniker Mindbender.
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His 75-year old mom “Mama Irene” is a regular attendee at Insomniac’s events. At this year’s White Wonderland Dash Berlin made Mama Irene’s night by pulling her up to stand on the turntables and blow kisses to the crowd while dancing with her.
Photo creds: Twitter/Instagram