Electric Daisy Carnival founder Pasquale Rotella gave the shakes to artists and agents, and raised the eyebrows of fellow event promoters yesterday, by declaring that his interest in booking known DJs was waning.
“Our strategy moving forward is we don’t want to book the [big] guys,” he said on the “An Agent and Five Promoters Walk Into a Room” panel, during Day 2 of EDMBiz, the two-day industry conference hosted by his Insomniac Events. “I don’t want to be a promoter. My passion is not selling tickets and making money. I want to create an experience. You don’t need to book the big acts who sell out arenas.”
“You might want to stop right there,” half-joked AM Only President Paul Morris, who was moderating the panel. AM Only shed-fillers Tiësto and David Guetta are headlining EDC Las Vegas this weekend, with several of its other clients filling out the rest of the around 200-name line-up.
Even while pulling back his own support of artists, Rotella seemed to pooh-pooh the summer’s slate of DJ-fronted arena tours, featuring EDC headliners like Afrojack, Avicii and Kaskade.
“Tours are a new concept for DJs,” he said. “The Swedish House Mafia show at Madison Square Garden was pretty awesome, but there’s only going to be a handful of DJs who can pull it off.”
Later, when an audience member asked about the most important three elements of a successful party, Rotella responded with “the right venue, the right team, having a good relationship with the city you’re in.”
