How Pasquale Rotella Built His Rave Empire

For Rotella, the party is the attraction. Always was. Forget the $250,000-per-gig superstar DJs and the same old lineups featuring Avicii, Afrojack and Tiesto on a permanent loop. At this year's EDC in Vegas, the stage was noticeably more concentrated, with DJs barely discernible inside the belly of Rotella's hallmark, a massive, "wide awake" night owl. (Insomniac's motto is "Wide Awake Since 1993," a nod to the drug-fueled, party-till-dawn raving of the early days.)

The ideal party for Rotella would be "10 percent music, 10 percent DJ names" — with a much bigger focus on the lighting, the costumed guests, the art. For him, it's about the whole experience, not just the names on the marquee: "I want to have the best theatrics and art and people coming for many reasons. The biggest thing is trying to get people to connect."

In Vegas for EDC, Rotella commands a motorcade of golf carts that shuttles his retinue from the helicopter landing area to his trailer next to the main stage. As the conga line reaches a gate, however, an assistant refuses security's command to slow down. One of the guards steps right in front of the first vehicle and is almost flattened.

PHOTO BY ERIK KABIK

Pasquale Rotella

PHOTO BY ERIK KABIK

Pasquale Rotella at Burning Man

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More About

• Pasquale Rotella
• Reza Gerami
• Todd DeStefano
• Insomnia
• Crime and Law

"Do you know who we're with?" doesn't seem to cut it. The security guards, now aided by local police, grow suspicious and start searching people. James Frey's backpack gets a worse reaming than Oprah ever gave him, and even Madison's little clutch is not immune from the TSA treatment.

Rotella and Madison, who's dressed in a long, butterfly-print skirt, sit in back of the first cart, facing the rear. As the carts get the green light and begin to meander through the crowds, with a sweating bodyguard jogging on the ground behind the couple, ravers run up to say hi and take pictures. Rotella gets recognized 2-to-1 over Madison, the Playboy beauty, reality TV star and tabloid fave. The raver kids point and shout, "That's Pasquale!"

"That's the biggest success," Rotella says later. "I have the best, most loyal crowds in the world."

Later that night, Rotella meets up with his mom at his row of VIP tables. She's wearing a sparkling black top hat and oversized, heart-shaped sunglasses. As a way of greeting, she slaps a reporter's cheeks as only an Italian grandmother could.

At Rotella's VIP corral above the main stage, vodka flows and childhood friends who have never left his side enjoy the fruits of a bro's labor.

Rotella is a true believer that raves are a force for good, presenting a great equalizer in the form of the dance floor, even if he now observes the festivities like royalty, from a couple stories above.

"There are people," he says, for whom "the rave scene was good. I'm one of them."