The Ultra Music Festival is one of the world’s most famous outdoor electronic music events and it is held annually in Miami, Florida during the last weekend in March.
Originally created as a pure EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festival in 1999, Ultra has grown through the years to present not only the World’s hottest, biggest and best headline EDM artists (Tiesto, Benny Benassi, Swedish House Mafia, Above & Beyond, ATB, Carl Cox, Paul van Dyk, David Guetta, Armin van Buuren, Deadmau5 and Paul Oakenfold, to name a few), but also features the most cutting edge production in the industry and festival circuit.
Coinciding with the end of Winter Music Conference, this event is jammed packed with two full days of the best artists in the electronic dance music scene and this year The 12th Annual Ultra Music Festival shattered its previous records and sold out both of its days with over 100,000 people in attendance!! Featuring 200 international electronic DJs, music performers, and cutting-edge bands this two day event made a huge splash in the dance music scene and fans will surely agree that this event not only secures their spot among leading dance music events but also challenges itself every year to bring the fans the latest and greatest in electronic music.UM
Here are some facts about this year’s historic UMF:
- Largest attendance numbers ever with over 100,000 fans present.
- First sold-out show as a two-day event.
- First time ever an event has sold out, let alone for two days, Miami’s Bicentennial Park.
- Over 1.4 million people in 178 countries logged on to watch a stream of the festival’s stages which during that time 65,000 chat messages were exchanged about it.
- Won an IDMA (International Dance Music Award) for “Best Music Event” for its fifth consecutive year.
With every passing Ultra, you notice a mainstream influence in terms of both performances and special guest appearances and this year was full of both. We got to see scheduled performances by the likes of Will.i.am as well as Damian Marley & Nas. Not to mention surprise performances and special guest appearances by the following celebrities:
- David Guetta was joined by Lil Jon, LMFAO and the Black Eyed Peas’ Will.i.am and Apl.de.ap
- Felix Da Housecat welcomed Sean “Diddy” Combs.
- Chanteuse Kelis guested with Benny Bennasi for their song “Spaceship” and the Guetta-produced track “Acapella”.
- Florence from Florence and the Machine graced the stage during Swedish House Mafia’s set.
- Drummer Tommy Lee along with vocalist Sofia Toufa joined Deadmau5 to debut a brand-new untitled song during his closing set.
- Macy Gray and TV personality Kelly Bensimon of “The Real Housewives of New York”.
Some in the dance community may see that the way mainstream music is affecting dance music is a bad thing but I feel that’s the wrong approach. If anything it’s a great sign that not only is the Dance genre getting attention from high profile artists such as the Black Eyed Peas and Sean Combs but Ultra is smart enough to lure regular people who may not be into dance music to a festival with over 16 stages of it. Over the past year dance artists have shown that collaboration with mainstream artists can be a wonderful thing such as David Guetta and Kelly Rowland’s “When Love Takes Over” which actually debuted at Ultra in 2009.
Hearing Lil John perform may not be your thing but you are surrounded by so many dance acts that you’re just a few hundred feet away from another performance. That’s one of the many factors that make Ultra so fantastic.
When it comes to dance events, there is no better value for your dollar than Ultra Music Festival. No where else can you see your favorite DJs along with hundreds of other performers on multiple stages with state of the art lighting, pyrotechnic and sound systems. Every year Ultra delivers on the promise to bring you the best in electronic dance music and just when you think it can’t get any bigger, they surprise you all over again. There’s a reason why year after year Ultra continues to win IDMA’s for “Best Dance Event” as well as being crowned Winter Music Conference’s Official Closing Event.
We would like to thank the wonderful Alexandra Greenberg, Shazila Mohammed and especially John Ochoa over at MSOPR, the organization handling Ultra’s press coverage, for giving ADR media coverage access to Ultra Music Festival 12! Being present for this record breaking Ultra was an honor in itself but thanks to MSOPR, ADR got to go backstage to conduct interviews and take up close pictures of various performances as well as with various performers and we brought this all back for you, the fans. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience that we hope to turn into a once in a year experience. Although we’ve uploaded all of the pictures we’ve taken, we still have two more interviews that we conducted at Ultra that we have to post in the coming months, so look out for those.
Want to know more about the Ultra? Be sure to check out the Ultra Music Festival website.
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