Exit
within Insomniac or the scene.
“We feel as though we are the
safest festivals out there,” Rotella
said. “Whenever anything tragic
happens, whether it’s at the festival or even hours after the festival
and the attendee just came to the
show, it’s always suddenly about
the genre of the music and about
the style of the event.”
After this year’s event in Vegas,
one man died after being struck by
a car and another died when she
fell from her hotel room. But neither of these incidents occurred
at the festival, as Insomniac reps
were quick to point out.
It would be easy to dismiss
Rotella’s defenses if they didn’t
ring with certain truths. After all,
when a stage collapsed in advance
of a Toronto Radiohead show —
killing a 33-year-old drum technician — no one decried alt-rock
as a dangerous stain on society.
Nor, it bears mentioning, did such
protests emerge last year when
Bonnaroo reported its ninth death
in 10 years. (Bonnaroo’s 2011 attendance? A mere 80,000.)
Rotella actually pulled the plug
on one of this year’s nights. Saturday, the most popular of EDC’s
three nights, was marred by gusting winds that Rotella’s team
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deemed unsafe. “It’s pretty black
and white, that was not a call that
was made by fire or police — they
were actually looking to us and
our team,” he said.
As a fan of old-school techno,
break beat, drum-and-bass and
early Moby, Rotella is sometimes
reminded that he’s from a different generation than many who
attend his events. “I
was a little sad when
I first started seeing a
It’s more
bunch of kids standfun to dance
ing there with their
like no one
phones out,” he conis watching
fessed before adding
than to watch
that at least young
someone
fans don’t know
push buttons
what the scene used
on a stage.”
to be like, and thus
can’t really be missing out. “I do think they’re being
deprived, though,” he said. “It’s
more fun to dance like no one is
watching than to watch someone
push buttons on a stage.”
It’s comments like these —
about the replaceable nature of
DJs — that sometimes get the Insomniac top boss in trouble. Rotella ruffled some feathers at this
year’s first annual EDMBiz conference (hosted by Insomniac, naturally) when he said he was less