EDC’s opening night spectacle is breathtaking

The crush of fans entering Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the first night of Electric Daisy Carnival was every bit as heavy as expected. For those waiting to get in, the applause that intermittently poured out of the speedway elicited either cheers or groans at the prospect of missing whatever goodness was happening inside.

Once attendees made their way through the A gate, up the ramp and into the main festival grounds, they were met by the sheer spectacle of opening night at EDC. Everybody’s fresh and everything is new.

But while the lights dazzle, fans can’t really know how much thought and care went into constructing the colossal carnival. They probably would be even more awestruck.

It took three weeks to assemble, with many members of the core production team living on site and working 20-hour days, with other crew members pulling nearly 12-hour shifts, toiling from dusk until dawn to dodge the heat.

All the labor produced a stunning new setup with complete redesigns of Kinetic Field, the centerpiece of the festival; Cosmic Meadow, which has a flatter design with a new lighting rig; and Circuit Grounds, which got the most massive overhaul, moving from a semi-enclosed structure to a wide-open arena-like setting with a 360-degree setup with pillars and panels encircling the crowd space.

When Insomniac executive producer Steve Howard joined the company a year and a half ago, he brought more than three decades of concert production experience, including five tours with the Rolling Stones, several tours with U2 and countless other productions. They all pale in comparison, he says.

“I thought, this crew, this Insomniac crew that grew up doing raves … I had lots of experience touring rock bands from small to huge, so I knew how to do this,” he says. “These guys just taught themselves how to do this, just running parties that just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”

“All those big tours that I’ve done that are fantastically complicated and require so much prep and organization and everything,”he goes on, “are not nearly as complicated as a Pasquale Rotella production at Electric Daisy Carnival. There are so many moving parts to this festival, and it’s what Insomniac does.”

For his part, executive producer Forrest Hunt, originally a psychology major, has been with Insomniac for nearly two decades now, and has seen just how far the festival has come. He’s essentially been with the company since the beginning and remembers Rotella coming up with creative ideas at his dining room table and throwing underground parties. Hunt, who’s seen just how much the production levels have progressed over the years, seems just as impressed with his colleagues, guys like production director Alyxzander Bear.

Another integral part of Insomniac’s production crew, Bear was on the crew for the original touring production of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” in 1980.

“We spent a million bucks building that, and it only played in like three cities in the U.S. and England, and people thought we were crazy spending a million dollars on a stage,” Bear said. “And here we are today doing something that totally blows that away.”

Even more impressive: The crew has less than five days to break the whole setup down.