Pasquale Rotella dives deep into the creation of UNITY at Sphere, how he keeps his creative spark alive, and where Insomniac is heading next.
Las Vegas has become renowned for its lavish casinos and eye-popping entertainment experiences over the years, but none have been as grandiose as the Sphere. The monumental venue, tucked on the east side of The Strip next to the Venetian, features the world’s largest LED screen, cutting-edge sound, haptic seats, and more, which together produce the best immersive sensory experience on the planet. A plethora of artists from rock to pop to electronic have already begun to grace the stage at the venue, and this year also brought forth another exciting adventure: Insomniac and Tomorrowland‘s UNITY at Sphere.
While UNITY seemingly popped up out of nowhere in March, the story behind this collaborative journey between two of the largest promoters on the planet began years before Madison Square Garden Entertainment even broke ground on the site. In fact, Insomniac’s founder and CEO, Pasquale Rotella, had caught wind of the project and was already scoping it out as a potential venue. “The thought of a venue that was so unique being built in Las Vegas was just exciting, so I immediately jumped on it as soon as I heard about it,” he said over video chat with EDM Identity.
While Rotella and the Insomniac crew wanted to do something at this futuristic venue, it wasn’t until later on that a collaborative event came into the mix. “I had heard through someone at the venue that Tomorrowland was also interested in doing something,” Rotella said. “And I thought that was interesting because those guys do wonderful events, and we were also talking about doing a CORE event in LA, which we’ve already announced.”
With the way the world is right now, I thought it might be a good idea to do something together because it’s a big venue. It takes a lot to produce a show there. It’s not easy. Not everyone can just go in there and pop up and do an event. It takes a lot of planning and a huge investment. So I reached out and proposed the idea. And they loved it.
Pasquale Rotella
While throwing festivals might be Insomniac and Tomorrowland’s bread and butter at this point, the two brands couldn’t just snap their fingers to make UNITY come to life overnight. Months of planning, and more importantly, the creation of the visuals, needed to take place — all while the project was under wraps to keep the surprise alive.
The scale of the show alone was a monumental feat, especially considering how two different companies created the visuals. Pasquale’s biggest enemy, however, was the clock. “Time was against us, and getting everything done in time was not easy,” he said. “There were some inconsistencies with the quality of different scenes, but it ended up working out.”
We had to get really creative because we both wanted it to be the best show. I wanted the Tomorrowland sections to be amazing. They wanted the Insomniac sections to be amazing. And we felt that we both brought something different to the table. And the two of us coming together really complemented each other. So, although there were some worries about getting stuff done in time, when we looked at it in its entirety and put it all together, we were satisfied.
Pasquale Rotella
Tomorrowland’s portions of UNITY were centered on the festival’s immersive themes, which have been explored at length through different media, including books, comics, and more. On the flipside was Insomniac, which had its own deep history with themes, albeit one that was a bit less defined. Instead, the Los Angeles company looked to the roots in the culture and the community that it’s embraced over the past three decades to help take their portions of the show to the next level.
“Although we haven’t written full-on novels about each of our festivals — the fantasy side, the fun side, the creative side of it — we have loose stories that we implement through our marketing campaigns and on-site when people walk through the festivals,” Pasquale said. “We have characters and themes, so we had the opportunity to actually work on them a little more and be able to really take people down the rabbit hole, literally with one of them, Beyond.”
We do this for the art of it all. Us being able to jump in and take it to another level was a blessing, and we were excited to do it.
Pasquale Rotella
Reflecting on the run of shows, which caps off on October 17-18 with Sara Landry and Subtronics as headliners, Rotella reiterated that having more time would be the biggest change he would make next time around. He also teased that Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC), which didn’t have its own chapter in the UNITY story during the run, might be on the horizon.
“There was so much more I wanted to do. It has also inspired us to want to maybe work on doing an EDC show,” he said. “We do four events on the Insomniac side [of UNITY], and it’s definitely been a discussion on what we should do with EDC when it comes to a visual experience like this.”
That wasn’t the only takeaway, either, as Rotella explained that the themes and stories created for the Sphere inspired him to transform and enhance experiences in real life. “We started off really being inspired by our real-life events,” he said. “Now I feel like what we’ve created in the Sphere can now inspire us to do things that are special within the actual festivals. We will never be done with this stuff; we’re always looking to evolve and push things forward. And we just want to keep elevating the experience and creating new styles of experiences.”
The best thing about this project was that we’d never done anything like it before. To be able to do it, there were a lot of people who would like to get into the Sphere, and it’s not easy to get dates, and it’s a really special place.
Pasquale Rotella
The debut of UNITY marked the latest unique experience from Insomniac, which celebrated its 30-year milestone in 2023. While the first two decades saw Pasquale Rotella find his footing and begin to grow the company, the brand has become a true behemoth in the scene on a global scale in the past decade. Flagship experiences like EDC and Beyond Wonderland have touched down on multiple continents, and you can now attend an Insomniac show from coast to coast on US soil. Yet this level of success wasn’t an easy road to navigate.
“When I started, I was just trying to make it and survive,” Pasquale Rotella said, reflecting on the early years of Insomniac. “It was really, really hard to be an independent promoter who was dreaming really big with no real mentorship, figuring it out as I went along, DIY, and also challenging to even get accepted. We couldn’t even rent a legal venue if we wanted to.”
Because of these struggles, Rotella, now having run Insomniac for over three decades, has looked to transform the company to become a resource for others who share his passion for the dance music scene and want to achieve their dreams. This has been evident through internal initiatives like the Discovery Project, as well as the partnerships Insomniac has formed with brands in recent years.
We’ve been able to really support entrepreneurs, ravers who have big ideas. And I love that because I was searching for that for a really long time. It was really hard. So to make things easier for people in the scene and people who love the culture, the music, the art of it all, and be able to be there for them, that’s a really big deal.
Pasquale Rotella
“We respect all the different art forms. It’s not just music,” Pasquale said after mentioning the Discovery Project. “Music still is as important as it ever has been, but we raise the importance of all these other art forms. There’s an art form to being a producer, a great organizer. There’s an art form to flyer design, graphics, production, creating an experience, theatrics, the costumes, all that. We respect everything on the same level. And to be able to support people who have ideas that come from this community and that love this scene, that is something that I feel very blessed to be able to do, and I’m honored to be in this position.”
To Rotella, Insomniac’s relationships with other brands are, at times, misunderstood. “We only work with people who want to work with us and who are looking for help, and we’re there to help them,” he stated. “We run our events, like for example, Nocturnal Wonderland. But if there’s an event out there and someone comes to us with ideas we like, we support them, let them do their own thing, and make their own decisions. To be able to be in that position is just a dream come true. So that’s what I’m very happy about being able to do these days.”
Another aspect that drives Rotella to continue on his path with Insomniac is witnessing the scene’s rise and fall over the past thirty years. “It was never as easy as it is now. Not that it’s easy; it’s a lot of work and still challenging. But I look around today, and I don’t really see anyone around from back in the day,” he shared. “Very few people in the whole country survived the ups and downs. And that was not due to anything other than it being hard in every category. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of challenges that have come through, and they’ve changed with every couple of years that things change, trends change.”
I feel rewarded when I see the scene grow. It’s not necessarily Insomniac as an entity, but the whole culture, the acceptance, the interest from so many people from across the globe, that didn’t exist. So I celebrate that growth. It’s not really personal. It’s not just about us. So that’s what I think about. I think about the whole culture and scene. ‘Cause I feel connected to it.
Pasquale Rotella
Connection is key in the dance music scene, which is deeply rooted in its culture and community. Rotella’s passion for the scene helped foster the community surrounding Insomniac that made the brand what it is today. Three decades later, it doesn’t seem like much has changed regarding his love for the rave. When asked how he and the rest of the team keep themselves grounded with the community, he provided a simple explanation: “By raving.”
I still love it. I still live it. I’ll never stop. You learn by being part of the community. You know, I’m just someone from the dancefloor, and my interests change just like everyone else’s because you want something new and fresh. There are other people here in the office who are straight from the dancefloor as well, and people have different ideas and different perspectives of what that next thing looks like.
Pasquale Rotella
Rotella noted that he and his team aren’t “coming from a place of business,” instead, they’re dance music lovers who are building events for themselves and often have FOMO that they can’t be on the other side as attendees. “What party do I want to go to? Who do I want to see there?” he asked, posing questions that circle his and his team’s minds. “We can only hope that other people will like it. Just like other people, we need change. We need different experiences and for things to evolve, to keep us engaged, and to keep us excited. So we really come from a place of being on the dancefloor.”
For fun, I asked Pasquale if he ever gets tired, and he replied with a “not really.” After all, you wouldn’t expect the founder of Insomniac, which has fully embraced its “Wide Awake” mentality over the years, to be tired. “Not when it comes to being a fan and enjoying the events,” he continued. “I get energized. It’s electric for me. But is it hard work sometimes behind the scenes? Absolutely, absolutely.”
That opened the doors to a deeper conversation about another misconception: that Pasquale isn’t a raver anymore. “I never grew up. I am a hardcore raver. I live for this,” he said. “I think about it in the mornings, and I think about it when I go to bed. It keeps me up at night. As I mentioned before, I get FOMO when I’m not out at an event and I see it. It doesn’t matter if it’s my event or someone else’s. I want to be there.”
I love [raving] as much now as I did the first time I discovered the underground scene. Nothing has changed about how I feel or where I’m coming from, and I will never grow out of it. I will never not care on the level I cared when I was barely surviving and just hanging on by a string… I do it for the exact same reasons, and that’s for the love of it. I’m just blessed to still be here and still be able to do it. And I think that I’d want people to understand that and know that that’s important.
Pasquale Rotella
Conversations circulating in the community, such as the notion that “the scene is dying” or that certain events should be categorized differently, are deemed “ridiculous” by Pasquale. He turned back the clock to say that a similar sentiment was said even at the very first rave he went to in 1990, mentioning that he was told, “Kid, shouldn’t you be home by now?” and “[The scene] is not what it used to be,” all the way back then. “They’re not ravers,” Rotella claimed.
“A real raver stays in the community,” he continued. “They don’t forget where they come from. They help youngsters or newbies — who don’t even have to be young, because there are people who start raving at 45 years old — and they help keep the core values of the scene alive. They don’t give up on it.”
People think it’s rough now. It was rough back in the day. This is nothing. Someone bumps into them and doesn’t say sorry. Of course, you don’t want those types of things to happen. The scene’s about being your best self. Peace, love, unity, and respect. But if you’re a lover of the scene and there’s something going on where there’s a shift, as a raver, you’re there wanting to keep it alive and keep that positivity in it.
Pasquale Rotella
Rotella described himself as a “first-generation raver, second-generation promoter,” highlighting the difference between him and the early promoters who came before him, who never walked through the front door. “They didn’t experience that,” he said. “And that’s why I felt like those events weren’t always treated sacredly. When I walked through that door, that was life-changing for me. And there were people who were already over it, and it hadn’t even started yet. I don’t even think those were the best years. They got a little better a little after that.”
It’s easy to throw something away. It’s hard to stick with something as changes happen, in my opinion. And if you feel it through every part of your body, and you really connect with it, you never forget that feeling. You never walk away and turn your back on a culture and a community and just throw it out like “It’s terrible now. It’s a wrap.”
Pasquale Rotella
Instead of throwing in the towel years ago, Rotella doubled down on the scene. He described it as beautiful and said he’ll never give up on it. His advice is to focus on any aspect that isn’t as good or changing, and bring creativity and energy into it. Rotella noted that the same mentality led to the creation of the “Get Up And Dance” crew in response to people sitting on dancefloors.
“We didn’t want the scene to die. We didn’t want that energy to die. We wanted people to dance on the dancefloor,” he said. “People respected it and loved it. We would get people to get up, and we’d encourage them to jump around.” The Get Up And Dance crew would sweep up those on the ground with industrial brooms, effectively getting rid of those who were “killing the vibe” by giving them gifts and having everyone back to dancing. Years later, this would lead to the creation of Ground Control, which is present at all major Insomniac-run events.
As the conversation came to a close, it drifted from the past to the future, with Pasquale Rotella sharing some aspects of Insomniac that he’s excited for in the years to come. This included smaller aspects, such as producing limited edition posters for each major festival and creating unique flyers that have become a signature for Insomniac.
“These aren’t just invites. These are art pieces. These are memories. They’re keepsakes,” he said about the flyers, which have otherwise gone by the wayside in the digital-driven scene. “We don’t have to make all these die-cut flyers, but to me, it’s part of the culture. It’s part of the community. I’m a flyer collector. I’m an art collector. And I know what flyers look like. Not my parties, other people’s too. It’s art, it’s all art to me. And I love it. So that’s why I think it’s important.”
On a larger scale, he mentioned Factory Town in Miami and the 30-year anniversary of EDC Las Vegas in May, teasing that there are “a lot of special things going on for EDC in Vegas” this year. Additionally, he mentioned a new venue in Los Angeles, indicating that while Insomniac is expanding elsewhere, such as EDC Colombia in late 2026, the city the brand calls home remains a focus.
“There are small things that I’m excited about, and then there are big things, like brand-new venues,” he said. “But we’re working on some projects that we’ve never done before, and some new festivals as well that haven’t been announced yet.”
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