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In October 1992, nearly 1,000 music fans were arrested at a rave in Milwaukee's Third Ward, sparking a controversy about electronic dance music and its purported influence on young people. In those days, DJs spun records imported from Europe as crowds in warehouses danced until sunrise, glow sticks raised.

After the raid, promotional word about raves spread quietly. Flyers led to a hotline number, then a recorded message, then a secret meeting spot, where you'd get a map to a far-flung barn or campsite. The stealth gave the movement a thrilling quality. But as the media hyped the dangers designer drugs and fire hazards musical trends changed, sending EDM deep into the underground

Twenty years later, you can still attend a "rave" in Wisconsin, but it will be easy to find. A promoter will tweet about it, and it will take place at a public venue like the Alliant Energy Center, where on April 13, the electronic artist Bassnectar will crank out party bangers and inventive remixes of tunes by dance-pop darling Ellie Goulding and gypsy punks Gogol Bordello.

Many of the genre's visual elements are the same as they were in the 1990s, but they're bigger and brighter, with laser lights, fog and projected images that make mouths gape as thousands of bodies writhe to the rhythms of dubstep, electro house and other varieties of EDM. If you go to the Bassnectar show, look for a crowd writhing ecstatically in a stew of bleeps and bloops, waving their hands amid a miasma of confetti.

Dance till dawn

EDM's popularity is booming. After performing mash-ups at UW-Madison's student union five years ago, Girl Talk now fills the Alliant Energy Center's 6,000-capacity Exhibition Hall. Bassnectar will likely do the same. He played the tiny King Club in 2007 and the Majestic Theatre in 2009.

Some fans who've experienced both rave scenes swear they're similar. Matt Fanale, a local music fan who DJs under the name Eurotic, says a new generation of concertgoers wants to dress in neon and dance till dawn. To him, this is evidence that music trends come in 20-year cycles, and that the motivation to party is the same as it ever was.

"At rock shows, you're singing and screaming along, but you're not necessarily dancing," he says. "With a DJ, you don't have to watch what's onstage. You can pay more attention to the other people who are there and feel a real connection to them for a few hours."

Fanale suspects that the sluggish economy has fueled attendance at live electronic shows. "With the world as depressing as it has been lately, people want to lose themselves with thousands of others. It's more fun to be happy than angry," he says.

The paradoxically isolating nature of social media also plays a role, according to DJ Nick Nice, who helped launch the Midwest rave scene in the early 1990s after spinning records at Queen, a Paris club where David Guetta curated the music. "Facebook is such a solitary experience. It's basic human nature to want to be social, and listening to music with thousands of other people reminds you that you're not alone, even when the world seems to be falling apart," he says.

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A new wave of rave: Electronic dance music gets the party started, 2012-style

MONTCLAIR Police released more details today about the unruly crowd that prompted the shutdown of a sold-out dance party at the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair last night.

At least 24 people were sent to the hospital, with more treated on the scene for minor injuries and seven men were arrested following the chaotic mob scene that developed in downtown Montclair, police said.

Around 7:35 p.m. Montclair police arrived at the theater on Seymour Street after numerous calls about a large crowd outside. About 2,500 people, mostly college-aged, were lined up waiting for the 9:45 p.m. sold-out, Barstool Blackout tour, a rave-style electronic dance party put on by the website barstoolsports.com.

The Barstool Blackout Tours Facebook page described the event as: Touring the nation leaving nothing but a path of destruction in its wake. Lazers, Fog, Blacklights, Stroked and Everything that Glows right in your eyeball. An absolute orgy of sound and lights for all your senses. The series of shows that began in February has been held at venues all along the East Coast.

Police described the scene outside of the theater as drunken chaos, with people stumbling, unable to speak and under the influence of drugs or alcohol. A 22-year-old Bedminster resident told police she'd been bitten on the calf by someone, according to police.

Another female told police her friend was unconscious and police found the young woman passed out against a fence with the crowd beginning to trample her. She was carried to an ambulance and treated for injuries at Mountainside Hospital, police said.

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In total, 24 people were taken to the hospital, the majority treated for symptoms related to alcohol poisoning, police said.

The crowd of intoxicated coeds, many clad in neon, became unruly around 9 p.m. as people started shoving their way to the front of the line causing injuries, police said.

"Based upon the crowd losing control and the number of already intoxicated individuals in the area, police decided that for the safety of all involved the event would be cancelled," the release said.

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Details emerge on show shut down by police at Wellmont Theatre in Montclair

The Montclair police have provided additional details about the chaotic situation last night in and around The Wellmont Theater, in which apparently drunk or drugged people were part of an "unruly" crowd of more than 2,500 that turned out for the Barstool Blackout Tour, a rave party by black light, and one woman was bitten in the leg during a fight.

STAFF PHOTO BY ADAM ANIK

Police flooded the vicinity of The Wellmont Theater last night and remained there for hours, attempting to disperse an enormous crowd of more than 2,000 people, several of who were seemingly intoxicated, after the mob had been turned away from the theater since a show there was cancelled.

According to Detective Lt. Scott Buehler, the wild scene included people who were trying to push their way to the front of the line, who fought with and spat on police officers, and a teenager who passed out and was being trampled by the out-of-control throng.

Police from Port Authority, New Jersey Transit, Montclair State University, and a host of neighboring municipalities responded to help the Montclair police deal with the mayhem, which led to 24 people being taken to hospitals.

The frenzy started simmering when Montclair officers responded to the theater at about 7:35 p.m. Thursday, March 29, on a "report of a very large crowd," and security guards told officers that the event had sold out, according to Buehler.

While monitoring the multitude, police had dispatch notify surrounding agencies that mutual aid may be needed due to the large number of people, which had become unruly while waiting to get inside the theater.

Police also noticed that that a number of people in line were stumbling or having trouble standing up, appearing to be either intoxicated or high, authorities said. Several individuals were taken to ambulances that were staged nearby and transported to the hospital for treatment.

At one point, police were approached by a 22-year-old woman from Bedminster who had been bitten on the calf by an unidentified individual during an altercation, Buehler stated. She was checked by medical personnel and released.

In another incident, police were informed by a woman that her friend had passed out, and officers struggled through the crowd and located an intoxicated 19-year-old woman from South Amboy who was unconscious, against a fence near the theatre. The crowd was pressed against her and stepping on her. Police managed to carry the woman to an ambulance and she was transported to Mountainside Hospital.

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MPD: Pandemonium outside Wellmont included fighting, biting and trampling; 24 taken to hospital

Two Indiana State University students were confronted at gunpoint late Wednesday night just off campus, but ISU officials did not issue a campus-wide RAVE Alert until almost ten hours after the incident occurred.

The victims told police they were crossing the Long John Silvers parking lot near the intersection of Fourth and Ohio streets about 11 p.m. when a white female with shoulder length blonde hair pointed a gun at them and demanded the drinks they were carrying, according to the RAVE Alert.

The suspect was sitting in an older model silver colored vehicle and was accompanied by another female the students could not describe, according to the alert. The students were able to flee the scene without injury. ISU and Terre Haute Police are seeking further information about the incident and the alert did not indicate the suspects had been apprehended.

Despite the students reporting the crime an hour after it occurred to ISU Police, authorities waited until Thursday morning to notify the campus community. A RAVE Alert was sent via text message and e-mail at 9:15 a.m., describing the incident as an attempted robbery and directing people to Public Safetys website for more details.

Public Safety director Bill Mercier said he believed it was unnecessary to activate the RAVE Alert system so late at night.

It wasnt that significant and didnt pose an immediate threat, Mercier said. I thought it could wait for the morning.

According to the Indiana State University Police Departments annual security and fire report from 2011, the Department of Public Safety shall make timely warnings under the heading crime alerts when the Chief of Police or his/her designee affirms that the offense presents a threat to the university community.

The purpose of the alert is to provide information in a timely manner to aid in preventing similiar events, the report also states; but students disagree with the time lapse in which the alert was issued.

I feel like we should have been alerted beforehand, said freshman business major Austin Robbins. There are still a lot of people out at that time of night, and where it happened wasnt far from campus.

Freshman elementary education major Ashley Buchannan also agrees, saying It was kind of pointless sending us an e-mail this morning.I would want to know after it happened, not almost 12 hours after it happened.

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ISU: RAVE alert system effective

Montclair police closed down and evacuated the Wellmont Theatre Thursday night after a rave party went awry, with authorities arresting concert-goers to stem the drunken mayhem.

STAFF PHOTO BY ADAM ANIK

Emergency personnel escort two women out of the Wellmont Theatre as the venue was evacuated. At least one was injured and several people were Maced and arrested at the scene, according to a Wellmont Theatre employee. Authorities shut down the sold-out Barstool Blackout Tour show about 9 p.m. Thursday night. Police closed Bloomfield Avenue from Fullerton Road to Willow Street as mutual aid police officers drove the crowd of scantily clad concert goers out of the area.

STAFF PHOTO BY ADAM ANIK

Police from several jurisdictions block traffic on westbound Bloomfield Avenue at Willow Street after the Wellmont Theatre was evacuated and the venue was closed.

Several thousand concert goers arrived to see the sold-out Barstool Blackout Tour, and fights broke out as youths tried to move inside for the event, with disturbances erupting inside the venue, as well, according to several witnesses.

The show was slated to begin at 8 p.m., but roughly an hour later Wellmont security guards announced that there were too many people in the venue, it was being shut down, and they had to leave.

The Montclair Police Fire Department closed Bloomfield Avenue from Fullerton Avenue to Willow Street and concert-goers were evacuated from the theater. Police began arresting youths.

Six people were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct, and 19 people were taken from the scene and hospitalized, according to Montclair Police Lt. Emil Dul.

"People were out of control," Dul, who had been at the scene, told The Montclair Times.

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Montclair Wellmont Theatre rave concert ends in mayhem, arrests