elrow Miami Music Week: As The Brand Expands, It’s Still All About Family

elrow returned to Factory Town Miami for its ninth Miami Music Week show last month, bringing with it an army of alien-costumed performers, flying saucers, colorful lights, inflatables, A-list DJs, a giant yellow chicken, and confetti by the truckload.

Some might find this extraterrestrial, but it’s just another day in the world of “Rowsattacks!,” a themed party from the famously absurd Spanish events brand.

This year’s 12-hour elrow closing party hosted performances from esteemed house DJs, including collaborative sets like A-Trak B2B Melé, LP Giobbi B2B DJ Tennis, Malóne B2B Ky William and Bastian Bux B2B Tini Gessler, and solo performances from Shermanology, Sosa, Thunderpony, and special guest Mau P.

While arguably a scaled-back version of elrow’s hallmark endeavors—understandable, considering the venue’s temporary stage—the event still served up the same slice of magic that the brand has been cooking since it launched in 2010.

Back then, elrow was a semi-legal Sunday afterparty at Barcelona’s Row 14 nightclub. Now, under the guidance of co-founders and brother-sister duo Juan Arnau Jr. and Cruz Arnau, it’s one of the most successful and instantly recognizable party outfits in the world.

In just the first three months of 2024, elrow has already held seven events in seven different countries. 

Another 31 are confirmed on the way, comprising standalone gigs in new markets like Reggio Emilia, Italy and Washington D.C., festival takeovers at ARC Music Festival, Mysteryland, and Sziget, the brand’s own elrow Town, Snowrow, and elrow Island festivals, and its annual residency at Amnesia Ibiza.

It’s well-known in the industry that elrow is a family-owned business. The Arnau entertainment legacy dates all the way back to the 19th century, revolutionizing recreation time and time again in the Catalonian town of Fraga, situated roughly 120 miles from Barcelona.

Starting with Juan Jr. and Cruz Arnau’s great-great-grandfather, Juan Arnau Cabasés, the bloodline is responsible for opening one of Fraga’s earliest casinos in 1870, its first major cinema in 1943, and the region’s leading discotheque, Florida 135—previously Florida Fraga—in 1978.

Roughly ten years later, led by Juan Jr. and Cruz Arnau’s father, Juan Arnau Sr., Florida 135 would lead the charge in introducing techno music in Fraga. Eventually, the family would start Spain’s revered Monegros Desert Festival, which will hold its 31st edition this June.

But the “elrow family”—the name adopted by the larger company that now oversees elrow, Row 14, Florida 135, and Monegros Desert Festival—extends far beyond blood relatives.

Elrow’s music director, Victor De La Serna, joined the working family 10 years ago, but his relationship with the Arnau family stretches back further.

“My first clubbing experience was at their club, and my first festival experience was at their festivals,” he shares during our chat at a popular South Beach sandwich spot. He’s in town for the Music Week festivities and, as a core member of the elrow team, he rarely misses a show.

De La Serna grew up roughly 45 minutes from Fraga, before moving to London to study sound engineering and music technology in 1999. Shortly thereafter, he met Juan Sr. during a return trip to Florida 135.

De La Serna went on to DJ, produce, and work for celebrated clubs like Pacha and Ministry of Sound, building a career as a promoter, A&R man, and journalist—eventually opening DJ Mag’s offices in Spain and Australia. When he moved back to Barcelona from Australia, Juan Jr. came calling and De La Serna has been with elrow ever since.

“I remember back in the days when elrow was a very small brand from Barcelona,” De La Serna says. “At that point, we were even traveling with everyone in the van, with decorations and everything.”

These days, elrow has swapped small vans for huge moving trucks in what is now a global operation with offices and warehouses in Barcelona, Ibiza, New York, Shanghai, and South America.

As is the case for many successful parties, De La Serna says elrow’s early Ibiza residencies at clubbing institutions like Privilege (circa 2012), Space (circa 2014), and eventually Amnesia, were an important step towards the brand’s worldwide success.

“Ibiza was a showcase,” De La Serna says. “It’s a showroom. All of the promoters go to Ibiza. They want to see the new parties, and it’s a bit of word of mouth.”

With wildly psychedelic art installations, stilt walkers, aerial performers, confetti blasts, and a fuzzy chicken mascot named Rowgelia, promoters certainly took notice.

“We didn’t invent the wheel, but I think we changed it a little bit so that we incorporated elements from different parts of life, from circus to theater,” De La Serna says. “It’s not just lineup-led. It’s a whole immersive experience, and I think that’s what separates us from other events.”

It remains common practice for elrow to delay lineup reveals well over a month after a show is announced in a given city, which De La Serna says helps them gauge the brand’s individual selling power in new markets.

“That’s why you will always see that we say, ‘Hey, we’re coming to Miami, or we’re coming to New York, or we’re coming to whatever part of the world—sign up for tickets, this is the ticket price, and then this is the lineup,’” he says.

While some party brands will license their name, likeness, and some operational aspects to other promoters, elrow’s global operations are kept entirely in-house, including designing and building all of the elaborate decorations for their 17 rotating party themes. 

“When we do events worldwide, we always work with a local promoter, but all the creative, all the IP, and everything stays with us,” De La Serna says. We like to keep creative control of everything we do. And I think that keeps the quality of the brand as it is now.”

Elrow’s current crop of party themes ranges from newly minted ideas like “Rowsmic Carnival” and “Dance with the Serpent,” to time-honored favorites like “Rowlympic Games,” “Rowsattacks!” and “El Rowcío.”

All of the themes are routinely updated, and new ones are dreamed up each year. They even have a project called elrow’art, which calls on independent artists to submit and execute their own party themes.

“We always say in elrow that every crazy idea could be a good idea,” De La Serna says. “People can throw things in the mixer, we come up with names and it’s a very collaborative project.”

That collaborative energy is felt on the dancefloor, too, with the crowd and DJ sharing a mutual adrenaline rush as the confetti flies.

Every hour—on the dot—at the Miami show, observant revelers catch elrow’s production team readying the confetti cannons, which will soon launch a hurricane of colorful paper into the air—perfectly timed with a beat drop.

With each explosion, the crowd reconnects with its inner child. Even the most stone-faced clubbers crack a grin, and suddenly, dance music—these days often condemned for taking itself too seriously—is accessible again. 

“Nowadays, I feel like most of the more important shows in the industry are not making people smile,” says Bastian Bux, elrow’s resident DJ of eight years. “But what I love from elrow is that everyone’s smiling, and during the confetti moment, everyone’s smiling at the same time.”

“It sounds cheesy, but it’s like this—when you make 5,000 people smile at the same time, you create electricity,” he continues.

Producing and touring under his real name, Joan Reyes prior to 2015, the Barcelona native has carved out an additionally worldly career since his Bastian Bux rebrand, releasing on respected labels such as Coyu’s Suara, John Digweed’s Bedrock Records, Nicole Moudaber’s MOOD and Sven Väth’s Cocoon Recordings. 

However, it’s his work with elrow that he cherishes most.

“I would say it’s been the most important thing that ever happened in my life, not only professionally, but also personally,” Reyes shares, alongside De La Serna, who is also his manager. “It’s the artist’s life, but also you are part of a big team. It’s a responsibility. You are not 100 percent free—in a good sense. You have to play for your team.”

“It makes you humble and makes you realize that you are not the most important person in the show,” he continues. “And for a DJ, I think this is something really important to learn fast because it makes you a better artist. And it’s more fun when you can share the experience with your teammates.”

This team effort has facilitated elrow’s quick rise, and since hiring current president Vicenç Marti in 2014 and securing funding from the American investment firm Providence Equity Partners in 2017, the brand has grown even more rapidly.

Though elrow’s yearly event count may be down from its pre-pandemic totals—De La Serna estimates a then 150 to 160 shows—the gigs are growing in size. The brand held its first elrow Town festival in London in 2017, launched its elrow Island destination festival in Malta in 2021, and started its Snowrow ski-resort festival in Andorra in 2022. This year, elrow will throw seven festivals.

“The stress levels are just through the roof now,” De La Serna says. “It gets to a point where we have to grow, and believe it or not—this is what people don’t see from the outside—most of the shows that we did on tour to grow the brand, they were losing money.”

“So the amount of work that goes into a 10,000-capacity show or a 5,000-capacity show [compared] to one of those festivals is tenfold,” he continues. “It’s been an interesting move, and it’s great and exciting. But it’s hard work.”

“In the beginning, we were doing smaller shows, like club shows. Everything was more intimate. But also, it was the beginning—the excitement of ‘Let’s see how far can we go,’” adds Reyes. “Later, we have these huge shows, with hundreds of people involved, and this new challenge—seeing that we’re taking over all around the world.”

After one short meeting with these two members of the elrow team, one thing is apparent above all else: no matter how big the brand gets, the elrow family will remain just that—a family.

“It’s shaped me as an artist and human,” Reyes says, reflecting on his time with elrow. “I got to meet the most important people in my life now. It’s been eight years and I grew up as an adult with them. I could not imagine how my life would be without them.”

“You’re going to make me cry,” De La Serna responds with a laugh and a smile.

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