Though Phil Pulitano was in the middle of an ayahuasca ceremony, he knew for sure that it was time to leave his long-term job.
Pulitano helped start the BPM festival with other people in 2008. It was a January event for people who work in the dance business and was named for “bartenders, promoters, and musicians.” Over the years, it has become one of the best indie electronic music festivals. The event ran for nine years in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and drew tens of thousands of fans and a strong group of techno, minimal, and house music artists and DJs every year.
Then, in 2017, someone was shot and killed in a club next to the event. This made the threat of violence very real and, in the end, BPM had to leave town. “This is to show that we are here, for not falling in line, Phillip-BPM,” was written in Spanish on a sign in town. “This is the start.” The Zetas drug gang signed the message.
Pulitano says over Zoom from his home in Ibiza, “In 90 seconds, our lives changed in every way.” “We were almost offered a $40 million buyout, but then one of our security guards and close friends was shot and we had to pick him up off the ground.” As part of its plans to grow, BPM held editions in places like Portugal and Tel Aviv, Israel. Eventually, it found a stable home in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. However, the 2017 attack was just the first bad thing that happened.
After its first event in Costa Rica in 2020, the 2021 festival was canceled because of the pandemic. Then, in 2022, BPM had to be canceled 30 hours before it was supposed to start because of emergency covid rules put in place by the government that made it illegal to hold big gatherings. The news reached the people planning BPM after about 7,000 people, or half of the total guests, had already arrived in town for the event. The team was able to hold a few smaller, brazen parties on private land nearby, but Pulitano says this was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” which cost BPM millions of dollars.
Things got worse when the company selling tickets to the event broke its promise to return the 14,000 people who were supposed to go. Pulitano and his business partner had to find the money to pay everyone back. Pulitano says that the stress made his relationship with his partner worse. He says, “I couldn’t even leave if I wanted to.” “My name was on it, and people still hadn’t gotten their ticket money back.”
Even though it was the smallest event ever (about 3,800 people), BPM 2023 gave the company a chance to get their money back and pay off their debts. He was proud of the event, but he thought the brand had lost its credibility. He also knew that his worry about everything was making his pregnant wife feel bad. A lot of people were dancing on the dance floors at this 2023 edition, and Pulitano knew it would be his last time working with BPM.
At that point, he had been to two ayahuasca ceremonies, which are an old Native American ritual in which people drink a psychedelic drink made from boiled vine and leaves. Pulitano calls these ceremonies “plant medicine” in everyday speech. He says, “I had to do my own thing.” “I had these drawings.” “I had a new thought.”
That’s the idea behind Pulitano’s event The 5th Element, which will take place in the rainforest of Puerto Rico in January. Like BPM, techno and minimal music will be at the heart of the seven-day event. But Pulitano says that inner meaning, spirituality, and good vibes will be what The 5th Element is really about.
Pulitano says, “I knew I had to find a way to make a hybrid experience in dance culture.” “I’m not going for the super-hippie vibe that plant medicine can have…” but doing something that helps and makes us more aware of what we’re doing.
In real life, this means getting about 4,000 people and about 60 artists to the spot in the Puerto Rican rainforest that hasn’t been revealed yet. (This spot has some infrastructure, like a restaurant and places to ride ATVs and horses. It is in the rainforest, but it’s not in a very dense or remote area.) In fact, BPM had planned to move to Puerto Rico in 2018, but those plans were shelved when a terrible storm hit the island in August of that year. Because rainforests are fragile ecosystems, Pulitano says that The Fifth Element will carefully follow the “leave no trace” rule and also offer chances to help clean up beaches.
Pulitano says the goal is to book artists who “want to come and experience something more, not just come in and make money and leave.” No one will be told what time the two parts of the event start or end. It says, “Your journey starts when you arrive.”
There will also be yoga, cooking lessons, art, and rituals on the schedule. It is said by Pulitano that The Fifth Element “is not a plant medicine event, but a consciousness event.” His nine-person group even includes a shaman who can help with spiritual issues. He thinks that rituals like smudging will happen on the dancefloor and that the whole thing will have more meaning and purpose than just partying and making money. At the start of the seven days, there will be a “opening ceremony ritual.” The music will then get louder over the course of the week, and by the end, the rituals will wind down.
People who are socially conscious, want to try new things, are interested in wellness, and have a fair amount of money are being encouraged to attend The 5th Element. They want to have personalized experiences that are different from most big corporate events. (A private backer is giving money to The 5th Element.)
Putting it all together, he says, “this event is giving me the same feeling I had when we started BPM in 2008 and when we were in Mexico.” He now calls his former business partner a “ex partner,” says they don’t talk, and says his deal to be bought out of BPM is “in a court situation right now.” He also says that the BPM brand was “destroyed” when the event in 2025 had to be canceled at the last minute because of problems with the permits. The event hasn’t said anything about plans for a 2026 edition yet.
But now that his visions from the ceremonies are coming true, Pulitano says he’s feeling a fire again that he lost some of after the 2017 shooting. He thinks that this idea will bring more heart to the dance world as a whole.
He says, “I think the scene has turned into a crazy bubble where the fees are too high for artists, which then falls on the promoter and then the guy who bought the ticket.” “It seems to be losing its essence this way.” It doesn’t really have any soul. We want to make something with soul, love, and unity; something that tries to find meaning in the chaos.
