FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Pasquale Rotella: "Kandi Has Nothing to Do with Making Events Safer"

The Insomniac head honcho on: Kandi bans, HARD vs. Insomniac, and where the heck Alice is.

Insomniac head honcho Pasquale Rotella sat down today with a group of journalists to field questions about the company's upcoming event schedule and recent happenings in the world of dance music. Discussed were the relationship between Insomniac and HARD, the future of Alice (in and out of Wonderland), and Pasquale's take on recent developments regarding event safety.

THUMP's own Jemayel Khawaja asked: "Both HARD and Mad Decent have now outlawed kandi beads at their festivals, ostensibly in the name of safety. Why is it that organizations immediately turn to 'de-raving' their events in the name of "safety"?

Advertisement

Pasquale: "I don't agree with the most recent kandi situation that's been brought up. This is what I understood happened: HARD was more doing it as a fashion thing. They were not down with that look, which is crazy, because dance music has been about expressing your individuality. People do that by what they listen to, the way they dance, what they wear…"

"After the recent problems that Mad Decent had, they actually called the HARD guys asking for suggestions. I think they got a list, and on that list was kandi. That's my understanding. It started as a fashion thing and then was brought over to the Mad Decent show as thinking it was part of safety measures. They're not aligned, from what I understand, on the reasons. One team was doing it for fashion and being afraid of being not cool, which I think is stupid, and the other team had good intentions but just didn't know enough about the roots of it, the culture."

"…It has nothing to do with making the event safer. We have better things to focus on, more important things to focus on that can actually help. Let people wear what they're gonna wear. It's crazy. Dance music events were the one place you could go and not be judged. You're supposed to feel comfortable. If people have a belief or have something that allows them to connect with others by trading beads, that's a positive thing. Don't kill that. I think there's some misunderstandings. I don't think they meant to target rave culture. "

Advertisement

THUMP also asked: "As Insomniac is all about the experience as a whole, do you think that artists that contribute to the experience, like VJ's, installation creators, designers, get enough credit?"

Pasquale: "Not at all. Even if you see like, a pop festival, you never hear about the artists involved. Some of these people are even more talented than the singers! We try to support all different art forms. Music is one that we respect just as much as the other art forms, but we try to support everything. On our website, we'll cover who builds our stages or who curated our art installations on our website. It's really important to us. We'll include their names, most of the time, as part of the entertainment in our festival guides."

Mixmag asked about the overlapping dates of HARD's Day of the Dead and Insomniac's Escape - All Hallows Eve, both in the L.A area this October.

Pasquale: "The HARD tests are actually part of the Insomniac family. We thought it would be okay. Halloween doesn't fall on the weekend every year. In the past, they've done one weekend and we've done the other. But there's enough people in Southern California to go around."

Twyla Griffin of L.A Music Blog asked about the lack of Alice-themed ravery this Halloween:

Pasquale: "As much as the team loves our own twist on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland story, we felt like we were playing it out too much. So we're gonna limit it to Beyond and Nocturnal and change up Halloween so we can get more creative and keep those parties a little more special"

Check out the Nocturnal Wonderland lineup below:

Related:
EDM's Most Powerful Man, Pasquale Rotella, Got Grilled on His Reddit AMA
Boomrat: The Real Story Behind Dance's Hottest New Music Platform