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It’s not easy to dance when you’re carrying baggage, which is why most airports don’t have ballrooms. That’s also the reason why organizers of the biggest rave in U.S. history--which promises to deliver 35,000 fans to Indio this weekend--are treating “rave” like an R-rated word.

Thumb through the 12 glossy pages of the detailed, psychedelia-splashed brochure advertising the massive event, called Nocturnal Wonderland, and you won’t see the word even once. Toss the term at event planners and they wince before asking, meekly, “Do you have to call it that?”

You can’t blame them. For weeks, residents of Indio heard about an “all-night dance festival” to be hosted at the city’s crown jewel, the lush Empire Polo Field, and everything was fine. Then, a few days ago, neighbors of the venue finally heard the event described as, well, the R-word.

“They were not happy, but we’re dealing with it,” groans Paul Tollett, one of the promoters of the event, which features more than 80 DJs, electronic musicians and hip-hop acts, among them Paul Oakenfold, Groove Armada, tha Alkaholics, Perry Farrell, Rabbit in the Moon, Dilated Peoples and Kool Keith.

What the event’s lead promoter, Pasquale Rotella, and Tollett are really dealing with is suitcases of stigma attached to the word “rave.” Their event is a watershed moment for the U.S. electronic dance scene, but even as the 14-hour festival symbolizes the blossoming present and promising future of the subculture, the past keeps getting in the way--and it doesn’t help that this week marks the first anniversary of the deaths of five young people in a rave-related car crash.

For most people, the word “rave” conjures images of mysterious, illegal warehouse parties where dancers groove on machine-like music and synthetic drugs such as Ecstasy. The all-night events have been outlawed in some Florida cities and ravers in Toronto have staged huge rallies to defend their subculture from a government crackdown. Across the U.S., rave-related tragedies or arrests routinely inspire flurries of media coverage, much of it sensational in tone. Many law enforcement officials see the subculture as purely drug-driven.

All of that frustrates the true believers, who say the euphoric, tribal vibe of the events and the sharpening artistry of DJs and electronic artists have created the most dynamic outpost on today’s music landscape.

Trying to Shed R-Word’s Baggage

There are too many devoted ravers and too many of the genre’s albums sold in stores, they say, to dismiss it all as an eye-candy ritual for dosing dancers. Also, the scene finds its axis in its ubiquitous, hippie-like motto of “PLUR” (it stands for Peace, Love, Unity and Respect) in an era of mosh-pit aggression.

“It’s a hostile climate out there for that word,” says Christopher Lawrence, a trance-music star who will be on the main stage at midnight Saturday. “It’s the growing pains of our music scene right now. . . . Until the general public experiences things like Nocturnal Wonderland the word ‘rave’ will have a negative connotation. We’re getting away from that word. Once people understand, then we can reclaim that word. Right now, it’s better not to use it.”

Whether the term is retired or rehabilitated, Lawrence said fans of electronic music will circle this weekend as a shining moment for the scene’s evolution. “This event shows how far the electronic music world has come,” the Los Angeles-based musician says. “This will be like Disneyland for the senses. This will be the event all future events will be measured against.”

Nocturnal Wonderland’s historic bid may have extra scrutiny because of some unfortunate timing. Not only will Riverside County--of which Indio is a part--soon consider a ban on raves, but this week also marks the anniversary of Southern California’s worst rave-related chapter, the deaths of five young people who careened off a San Gabriel Mountains highway in the bleary early morning hours after a night of raving at a ski resort.

That was one of many incidents and raves that Indio police researched in recent weeks after the Coachella Valley city OKd the Wonderland event for the polo grounds, according to Cmdr. Lance Mueller of the Indio Police Department. Of course, he didn’t use the R-word when describing this event.

“It’s just a word that nobody likes,” Mueller said. “The police, promoters, the venue people, politicians, everybody is staying away from that word because it has a negative connotation. . . . It’s an arbitrary street word, and it means different things to different people.”

Regarding this event, he says the “big issue, the roar from the public” has been concerns about drug use. “There will be zero tolerance of drugs,” Mueller said. “There’s no threshold of saying, ‘A little is OK.’ ”

Dealing With Fallout of Last Year’s Tragedy

This will be the first overnight public music event at the polo field, and with an eye toward the issue of driver fatigue, fans will be allowed to linger after the music ends at 6 a.m., co-promoter Tollett said. Fatigue, as much as drug use, has been cited by authorities as a factor in incidents such as the fatal crash a year ago.

Promoter Rotella saw the negative fallout of that tragedy up close, though it had nothing to do with him or his company. A major rave he had planned in Newberry Springs in the weeks following the accident suddenly ran into a bureaucratic wall with that city’s previously cooperative officials. He quickly relocated the event to the Cahuilla Indian Reservation in Anza, where he was forced to deal with cloaking clouds of dust, television news helicopters and fewer safety services.

Rotella, like many young rave mavens in Southern California, fell in love with the dance events during a trip to Europe. It was in 1991 that he was swept up by the energy of raves in England, ground zero for the house-music revolution, and when he returned to Los Angeles he was determined to re-create it here. His first forays were illegal, ragtag affairs in dank downtown warehouses--the type of events that created much of the baggage he hopes to shed now.

His company, Insomniac, is among the most powerful brand names among the region’s ravers, and its flagship event, Nocturnal Wonderland, has grown steadily through the years. Many of the veterans of past Insomniac raves--artists such as the Chemical Brothers, Moby, Underworld, Crystal Method and BT--have enjoyed growing critical and commercial success in recent years, paving the way for the music’s lifeblood event, the rave, to also move closer to the mainstream.

The seventh annual event this weekend could hardly be more different from those of Rotella’s early days.

Teaming with Tollett’s company, the established promoter Goldenvoice, Rotella was able to place this year’s Wonderland at the Empire Polo Fields, where Goldenvoice staged last year’s two-day Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. The event they’ve assembled will have vendors, massage booths, camping space, performance artists and the surreal trappings that are a hallmark of the rave scene (the event brochure promises “a fish on stilts, fire twirlers, mud people and violin-playing pigs”).

“It’s more than a rave and it’s different than a concert,” Rotella says. One of the major differences from raves is that Wonderland will start at 5 p.m. on Saturday, rather than late in the night. Instead of worrying about police shutting down the event, the promoter now works closely with law enforcement on traffic and security issues.

Also, instead of following a roughly drawn map that leads to a gritty industrial district, fans for this event will come in buses streaming in from Arizona, the Bay Area and Utah to hear the slate of international stars of splinter genres such as jungle, trance and “happy hard-core.”

“As far as a pure rave, 30,000 or more would make it the largest ever in North America,” says Simon Reynolds, author of “Generation Ecstasy,” a history of techno and rave culture. “And its size suggests the resurgence in the scene. Everything is getting bigger and bigger.”

Rotella could not agree more. Standing on a downtown L.A. sidewalk, not far from the warehouses where he launched his career, Rotella mused about the past and wondered if the future of his beloved scene will include the R-word.

“I’m proud of the rave scene,” he said, patting his chest. “I want to carry that torch high and show people how wonderful the whole scene is. But right now it’s hard. Maybe we can reclaim that word in the future.”

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Nocturnal Wonderland, Empire Polo Field, 81-800 Avenue 51, Indio, 5 p.m. $30 to $40 ($80 for VIP pass). (310) 288-3436.