ANAHEIM, Calif. — Eight years ago, T.J. Petracca and Morgan Freed invited a few friends to hang out at The Short Stop bar in Echo Park. They convinced the owners to let them take over the venue playlist and curated the first Emo Nite with a selection of the duo’s favorite emo and pop-punk songs.
“We didn’t think anybody was going to come,” Freed said during a recent video chat. “We thought it would be a couple of our friends – and it was way, way bigger than we expected. And we were just DJing off an iPad.”
Since then, Emo Nite has grown into a touring phenomenon that hits clubs and theaters in major cities throughout the United States and pops up for special sets at large-scale music festivals like the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and Insomniac Events’ EDC. In 2022, Petracca and Freed landed their first Emo Nite residency at Zouk Nightclub at Resorts World Las Vegas, where big-name EDM artists like Zedd, Tiësto, Deadmau5 and Kaskade all regularly perform.
