After nearly a year of speculation, Insomniac Events finally revealed it has entered a “creative partnership” with Live Nation. While the terms of the deal weren’t immediately disclosed, Billboard had previously learned that the deal is a 50-50 share valued at $50 million to each side.
Despite being in the midst of Insomniac’s business conference EDMBiz, company CEO Pasquale Rotella announced the news in the fashion that’s made him dance music’s most charismatic businessman: directly to his fans and followers, in lengthy posts on Twitter and Facebook. “I am pleased to announce that Insomniac and Live Nation have formed a creative partnership that will take our events to the next level,” he wrote. “I made this choice with my heart to expand our dreams. Live Nation and their team truly respect and understand what we do and why we do it.”
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The anticipated deal finally draws the battle lines in EDM’s big festival market, which continues to grow each year, becoming a rite of passage for the very desirable 16- to 25-year-old demographic. Robert F.X. Sillerman’s recently relaunched SFX has Dutch powerhouse ID&T, with its TomorrowLand and Sensation brands (both heading stateside in a big way this year); Ultra Music Festival remains independent; and Live Nation — after reportedly coming close to a deal with ID&T — now, at long last, can say it has Insomniac and its crown jewel, Electric Daisy Carnival. Taking place in Las Vegas June 21-23, EDC draws more than 300,000 fans during the course of its three days. Satellite EDC festivals in Chicago; New York; Puerto Rico; Orlando, Fla.; and, for the first time, London (announced in April as a partnership with Live Nation, foreshadowing the eventual big deal) are all gaining ground in their respective markets. Insomniac also hosts smaller festivals like Electric Forest in Michigan and Escape From Wonderland in California.
Also during EDMBiz, Insomniac brought Dick Clark Productions CEO Allen Shapiro to the stage to announce another partnership. Insomniac will work with DCP to produce a dance music awards show, set to take place in Vegas the Thursday before next year’s EDC and be broadcast through an as-yet-undetermined TV partner.
“Just on the rumor of this, we have had inquiries from distributors, from sponsors, and we’re just now starting to source through that,” Shapiro told Billboard shortly after the announcement. “This is obviously a very young audience, and as online distribution grows and grows and grows, we want to keep this show true to the niche of the audience and the art.”
With an EDC movie also in the works — directed by Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz of Magical Elves, the team behind Katy Perry’s and Justin Bieber’s 3-D movies — Rotella has successfully managed to make Insomniac a multimedia powerhouse, even as a potential jail sentence looms. The embattled Rotella is due back in court on July 29 to face bribery and other charges stemming from the 2010 EDC at Los Angeles Coliseum. If convicted, he could face a sentence of up to 14 years.
But for his partners like Shapiro — who said that EDM was at the top of DCP’s list of priorities, after getting control of the company in October — that doesn’t dilute his expertise in the space.
“[Insomniac] knows its way around this space, this environment, this group of artists, this group of promoters,” he said. “So there was no reason to be anything but confident.”