Ultra Music Festival celebrated it’s 21st birthday this past weekend, and things got a little bit messy. Last year the festival was forced to change their location from the usual Bayfront Park venue to a new area in Miami: Virginia Key after the Miami City Commission rejected an earlier contract to keep the festival in its original home.
The festival brings together more than 50,000 people per day from all over the world. Attendees from countries such as Brazil, Slovakia, Mexico, Canada, Japan and Colombia come for three days full of activities and performances from the best Djs.
Among the headliners were Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, David Guetta, Illenium, Kayzo, Tiesto and many more.
Many questioned its success, proving them right the first night of the internationally renowned event. Ultra announced that this year they were going to extend the festival until 2 a.m., allowing concert goers two more hours of raving and enjoying the best djs.
What the production team didn’t expect was that as soon as 2 a.m. hit thousands of attendees would walk out ready to leave to find a wildly disorganized transportation system.
Ultra has always brought problems with it from Miami residents complaining about the loud noises to traffic problems, but this year they were faced with a new set of problems.
Not only was there a minimum 30-minute walk between the two arenas: the main stage and resistance island but due to the transportation issue hundreds were left to walk a two-and-a-half mile across the Rickenbacker Causeway when the festival ended.
On Friday night, there were no barriers to clearly distinct shuttle lines, no barriers between sidewalks and the highway, and up to two hour waits for transportation back, although, shuttles had been suspended due to the heavy pedestrian traffic on the causeway.
The event organizers received approval of their new location in November 2018, leaving them with four months to plan and produce the event.
But, by Saturday night things seemed to be turning around. Ultra did a good job at fixing the problems they were faced with. The bus lines were organized better, adjusting traffic patterns and even putting up signs at the bus stops. They even extended the event until 3 a.m. with special after hour performances and extended food, merchandise vendor hours, art installations and more to decrease the number of performers leaving the event at once.
“We learned. We learned some things from day one, and moved on to day two, and we made further adjustments on day three,” said Ray Martinez, Ultra’s chief of security.
It is still unknown if Ultra will remain in their new venue for the 2020 show.