Ultra Music Festival

The Beach (1999-2000)

Ultra Music Festival was inaugurated and produced in 1999 by business partners Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes. The first festival was held as a one-day event on March 13, 1999. Artists at Ultra's first festival included Paul van Dyk, Rabbit in the Moon, Josh Wink, and DJ Baby Anne. The first Ultra Beach Music Festival, which was held at Collins Park in Miami Beach proved popular, with an estimated ten thousand concertgoers in attendance. However, Faibisch and Omes still saw a financial loss of between $10,000 to $20,000 during the festival's inaugural year.

Although, in March 2000 the festival returned to South Beach's Collins Park and was met with even more success. The festival was immediately renewed for a third year.

Growth

Due to the massive rise in attendance between 1999 and 2000, festival organizers decided to relocate to Bayfront Park in Downtown Miami for Ultra's third annual event in 2001. Ultra Music Festival continued to bring the biggest names in electronic dance music to Miami with performances by Robin Fox, Tiësto, EC Twins, Paul van Dyk, Paul Oakenfold, Sander Kleinenberg, Photek, Josh Wink, DJ Craze, Pete Tong, Erick Morillo, and Rabbit in the Moon from 2001 to 2005. In 2005, Fabisch met with Adam Russakoff, who has since been the executive producer, director of business affairs, and talent buyer for Ultra Music Festival and Ultra Worldwide. 2005 was also the year that Carl Cox and Ultra worked together to curate the Carl Cox and Friends Arena, formerly known as the Carl Cox Global Arena, which has been a mainstay at Ultra Music Festival for the past twelve years. With the record-breaking attendance of the seventh annual Ultra Music Festival in 2005, the festival was again relocated to another venue, Bicentennial Park, for 2006. In 2007, the festival held its first two-day event at Bicentennial Park with more than 50,000 concert goers in attendance, which was another record at the time for Ultra. The festival celebrated its 10th anniversary during March 28–29, 2008 with performances by Tiësto, Underworld, Justice, Paul van Dyk, Carl Cox, Armin van Buuren, MSTRKRFT, deadmau5, Annie Mac, Eric Prydz, Ferry Corsten, Calvin Harris, Moby, The Crystal Method, Boys Noize, Benny Benassi, Armand van Helden, The Bravery, David Guetta, and many more.

With an estimated attendance of over 70,000 people, Ultra Music Festival set a new record for the City of Miami for number of tickets sold at a single event. The eleventh annual edition of the festival occurred during March 27–28, 2009—the lineup included more crossover acts and live bands featuring the likes of The Black Eyed Peas, The Prodigy, The Ting Tings, Santigold, Crystal Castles, The Whip, and Perry Farrell. Ultra's twelfth edition took place during March 26–27, 2010, featuring exclusive performances from Tiësto, deadmau5, Groove Armada, Orbital, Little Boots, Sasha & Digweed, Above & Beyond, Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, Swedish House Mafia and The Bloody Beetroots. Each stage was accompanied with visual arts provided by VJs Vello Virkhaus, Psyberpixie, and Cozer.

The festival sold out for the first time with over 100,000 attendees, where it was also announced that the thirteenth annual edition would take place over the course of three days during March 2011. Ultra Music Festival expanded to a three-day festival in 2011, spanning the weekend of March 25–27, 2011. Also at Ultra's 2011 edition, Armin van Buuren debuted a stage dedicated to his radio show, A State of Trance, celebrating 500 episodes. Like the Carl Cox & Friends Arena, the A State of Trance stage continues to be a mainstay at Ultra Music Festival, taking place on the third day of the festival each year. The A State of Trance 500 stage featured artists like Ferry Corsten, Markus Schulz, ATB, Cosmic Gate, Gareth Emery, Sander van Doorn, Alex M.O.R.P.H., and more.

2012

The fourteenth edition of Ultra Music Festival was held from March 23–25, 2012. Due to the construction of the Miami Art Museum at Bicentennial Park, the event was moved back to Bayfront Park for the first time since 2005.

Early bird pre-sale tickets for Ultra Music Festival 2012 sold out within seconds. Shortly after, pre sale ticket prices increased from $149 to $229. This edition of Ultra featured artists like Kraftwerk, Bassnectar, Justice, Avicii, Fatboy Slim, Wolfgang Gartner, Richie Hawtin, Skrillex, Pretty Lights, M83, Duck Sauce, Kaskade, and many others. Madonna made a special surprise appearance during Avicii's closing set on the second night of Ultra 2012. This was the day after the international release of the "Queen of Pop's" twelfth studio album, MDNA. 2012 was also the year that Ultra Music Festival debuted its live stream, Ultra LIVE.

2013

In honor of its fifteenth anniversary, the 2013 edition of Ultra Music Festival was held over two weekends, March 15–17, 2013, and March 22–24, 2013. Phase one of the festival's lineup was officially revealed in January 2013, confirming appearances from David Guetta, deadmau5, and Tiësto on both weekends, along with Swedish House Mafia, who used the closing slot of the festival during the second weekend to serve as the finale of their official farewell tour, "One Last Tour". Other artists on Ultra's 2013 lineup included Afrojack, Calvin Harris, Richie Hawtin, Boys Noize, Carl Cox, Armin van Buuren, Alesso, Dog Blood (a project between Skrillex and Boys Noize), Luciano, Snoop Dogg, The Weeknd, Martin Solveig, Zedd, and many more.

On January 7, 2013, after organizers requested additional road closures for the event, Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff proposed a resolution calling for disapproval of the second weekend. Sarnoff believed that allowing the event to be held across two weekends would be "disruptive to the local business community and area residents due to noise, nuisance behavior of festival goers, and grid lock traffic," regardless of the fact that Ultra generated $79 million during its previous year. The city council voted in favor of continuing with the second weekend on January 10, 2013, charging the organizers for police and fire services.

Ultra Music Festival set another record after its fifteenth edition, welcoming a combined total of 330,000 people to Bayfront Park throughout both weekends.

2014

For 2014, the festival returned to a single weekend, which took place during March 28–30, 2014. Phase one of the festival lineup was unveiled in December 2013, confirming headline appearances by major acts including Armin van Buuren, Afrojack, Carl Cox, David Guetta, Hardwell, Fedde Le Grand, Krewella, Martin Garrix, New World Punx, Nicky Romero, Tiësto, and Zedd. After being diagnosed with a blocked gallbladder and going back to Sweden for surgery, deadmau5 replaced Avicii as the final act on the main stage for Saturday.

Notable performances during the festival included the premiere of Eric Prydz's new live show "Holo", the debut of Diplo and Skrillex's new side project Jack Ü, Above & Beyond's set being interrupted by a rainstorm; requiring them and their equipment to be moved backstage and facing away from the audience, Armin van Buuren and Benno de Goeji's world debut of Gaia in the A State of Trance Arena, and deadmau5 "trolling" the audience during his set with a remix of Martin Garrix's "Animals" set to the classic children's song "Old McDonald Had a Farm".

On the opening of the festival Friday, a security guard was left in "extremely critical" condition after being trampled by a crowd of people attempting to gate crash the festival by breaking down a chain-link fence.

2015

After the gatecrashing incident in 2014, some uncertainties arose as to whether Ultra Music Festival would take place in 2015. However, organizers announced that the 2015 edition of Ultra would take place during March 27–29, 2015. Organizers also announced plans for a comprehensive review of the festival's security arrangements with the involvement of the Miami Police Department, which assessed how security could be improved to "prevent a criminal incident of this nature from happening again."

On September 2, 2014, it was announced that as of 2015, Ultra Music Festival would no longer admit minors. Security head Raymond Martinez explained that the decision was made primarily to improve the overall safety and experience of attendees.

On January 12, 2015, Ultra co-founder Alex Omes, who had left the organization in 2010, was found dead at the age of 43. No cause of death was released.

The seventeenth edition of Ultra Music Festival welcomed the likes of Tiesto, Avicii, Dash Berlin, former Swedish House Mafia members Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, and Steve Angello, Martin Garrix, Hardwell, Eric Prydz, Andrew Bayer, Marc Kinchen (MK), Hot Since 82, Dirty South, Zeds Dead, Galantis, Tchami, Andy C, Wiwek, and more. The 2015 edition of Ultra Music Festival was closed by Skrillex, later joined by Diplo as Jack Ü. The final segment of the set featured live appearances by multiple guest vocalists, including CL, Kiesza, Sean Combs, and Justin Bieber. Ultra Music Festival 2015 also debuted the "Resistance" stage designed by the British collective, Arcadia Spectacular. The stage was also called the "Afterburner" and featured deep house, progressive house, techno, and tech house artists like Tale of Us, Dixon, tINI, Get Real (Claude Vonstroke and Green Velvet's latest project), Maceo Plex, Apollonia, Pete Tong, Guy Gerber and many more.

Video game streaming website Twitch took over as the host of the festival's official webcast in 2015.

2016

The 2016 edition of Ultra Music Festival took place during March 18–20, 2016 at Bayfront Park. Phase one of the 2016 lineup was announced on December 16, 2015; among others, it was revealed that the festival would feature the reunions of Rabbit in the Moon and Pendulum, along with other headliners such as Afrojack, Avicii, Carl Cox, Die Antwoord , Dubfire, Eric Prydz, Hardwell, Kaskade, Kygo, Miike Snow, Nero, Purity Ring, Tycho, and many more. Phase two of the lineup was announced a few months later and included AlunaGeorge, Andrew Rayel, The Chainsmokers, Crystal Castles, Galantis, Laidback Luke, Marshmello, Richie Hawtin, Sam Feldt, DJ Snake, Steve Angello, Tchami, and many more. General admission tickets for the eighteenth edition officially sold out on January 21, 2016.

As band member Maxim was unable to attend due to medical issues, The Prodigy cancelled their Saturday night performance. Deadmau5 took their place, giving him a second performance alongside his previously scheduled Sunday appearance as part of the A State of Trance arena. Knife Party and Pendulum closed the festival on the final day with a guest appearance by Tom Morello, and an additional appearance by deadmau5 where they also performed his song "Ghosts 'n' Stuff". The Resistance stage also returned, which featured Arcadia Spectacular's "Spider".

In April 2016, DJMag named Ultra the world's top festival as the result of a reader survey.

2017

Immediately upon the conclusion of the 2016 edition, it was announced that the 2017 edition would be held from March 24–26. Tickets officially went on sale on October 4, 2016. General admission tickets sold out on January 24, 2017.

Phase 1 of the 2017 lineup was announced on November 17, 2016, listing live headliners including Ice Cube, Justice, Major Lazer, The Prodigy, Underworld, and headlining DJ acts Above & Beyond, Afrojack, Armin van Buuren, Axwell Λ Ingrosso, Carl Cox, Dash Berlin, David Guetta, DJ Snake, Dubfire, Hardwell, Jamie Jones, Joseph Capriati, Maceo Plex, Marco Carola, Martin Garrix, Sasha & John Digweed, Steve Aoki, Tale of Us, and Tiesto. Phase 2 was unveiled on February 9, 2017, while Phase 3 and the final schedule were unveiled on March 9, 2017; Major Lazer, Axwell Λ Ingrosso, and DJ Snake were respectively scheduled as the main stage closing acts on the first, second, and final night.

The Carl Cox & Friends programming on the Megastructure stage for the first two days of the festival was re-branded under the Resistance brand; Carl Cox was named the "global ambassador" and curator of the Resistance brand in February 2017, and will curate its acts for all future Ultra events. The re-branded stage was accompanied by the original Resistance area featuring the "Spider" stage returning from 2016.

2018

Upon the conclusion of the 2017 edition, Ultra announced that the 2018 edition will be held from March 23–25. The 2018 edition will celebrate the festival's 20th anniversary.

Attendance

Attendance figures depict total attendance over the length of the festival.

*2013 Attendance reflects the festival's 15th Anniversary in which Ultra Music Festival was held over two weekends rather than one.

Ultra Worldwide

In 2008, Ultra began Ultra Worldwide — starting with Ultra Brasil, which took place in São Paulo, Brasil, now moving to Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Since then, Ultra has debuted worldwide festivals in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Ultra Buenos Aires); Santiago, Chile (Ultra Chile); Seoul, Korea (Ultra Korea); Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa (Ultra South Africa); Tokyo, Japan (Ultra Japan); Bali, Indonesia (Ultra Bali); Singapore, Singapore (Ultra Singapore); and Ibiza, Spain (Ultra Ibiza). In July 2013, Ultra Worldwide debuted Ultra Europe, also known as Destination Ultra, which takes place across the span of a week throughout different venues across Croatia. During the 2017 edition of Ultra Miami, it was announced that another Ultra Worldwide festival will be in Australia starting in 2018.

2012 began the event concept entitled Road to Ultra, which are single-day, single-stage events. Road to Ultra events have taken place in Thailand, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Colombia, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Macau, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. In 2016, Road to Ultra took place in Hong Kong for the first time, at the West Kowloon Cultural District.

Transportation and hotels

Ultra Music Festival attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world. Most visitors stay at hotels within the neighborhoods of Downtown Miami or Brickell. This is the most convenient option for attending the festival. Other popular neighborhoods include the Omni and Edgewater, which are both convenient options as well, they are also walking distance from Bayfront Park. Some visitors get hotel accommodations in South Beach. However, reaching South Beach from Ultra Music Festival can be problematic due to traffic, congestion, and expensive transportation options, making it a less popular option. Metrobus routes S, C and 120 connect Ultra directly to South Beach.

Festival attendees are encouraged not to drive to the festival, as parking is scarce and can be very costly. Instead, most visitors take the Miami Metrorail or Metrobus. The nearest Metrorail station is Government Center. Additionally, the free Metromover provides transportation throughout Downtown Miami and Brickell. As of 2016, train and bus service has been extended until 2:00 AM during the weekend of Ultra Music Festival.