California Declares June Electronic Dance Music Month

June is now “Electronic Dance Music (EDM) Month” in California. The designation comes thanks to the advocacy of California State Assembly Majority Whip Mark González, who proposed the bipartisan resolution in May and celebrated its approval alongside Insomniac Founder and CEO, Pasquale Rotella. 

“Electronic dance music, or ‘EDM,’ just didn’t show up one day. It was born in the margins, in the backrooms of Black, Brown, and Queer clubs from Chicago to Detroit, from Berlin to Oakland. And here, in California, we gave it a new rhythm, a new voice, and a new stage…we didn’t just join the movement, we became its heartbeat,” González said at the event. 

The designation recognizes electronic dance music’s significant cultural and economic impact on the state, where Rotella has remained a key driver of the movement, drawing crowds in the tens of thousands to Insomniac-hosted events across California. “Today, Insomniac, under his leadership, produces over 1,000 events annually across multiple continents, with California remaining the epicenter of its operations, its flagship festivals, and five dedicated venues in the state,” González attested. 

These events include annual festivals like HARD Summer, which attracts approximately 70,000 daily attendees to downtown Los Angeles for two days of beats in the August heat. Insomniac’s dedicated venues in the state span Southern California, with two in LA (Exchange LA and Academy LA), two in San Diego (Nova SD and Bloom), and one in Orange County (Time Nightclub).

The observance also represents a key shift in the state's reception of electronic dance music and its associated events, following years of scrutiny surrounding large-scale dance festivals in the late 2000s and early 2010s.