A brief over view of the situation. Miami will host the annual Winter Music Conference from March 8-12. The Winter music conference is a multi-day event which consists of conferences, awards ceremonies, forums, and some of the hottest parties in Miami. DJs fly in from all over and spin day and night for 4 straight days at every club, pool, and high-end hotel on the strip. Typically the WMC is one of the last weeks in March and coincides with the Ultra Music Festival, which is the largest electronic music festival in the world. UltraFest which started as a one-day festival, has evolved into a 100,000+ person, 3-day festival in Miami. Thus, it only makes sense that these two events would happen simultaneously, because it brings a larger crowd to Miami and the biggest DJ's in the world fly in for the entire week, so you have the best chance of booking and seeing as many awesome DJs as possible.
The WMC dates were announced yesterday, which coincided with Ultra tickets going on sale. The dates for the first ever 3day Ultra Music Festival are March 25, 26 and 27 and early bird tickets (which have ALREADY SOLD OUT) were priced at $119 GA before fees and are already up to $179. DJ's have been tweeting that they're going to boycott WMC and just go down for Ultra. This whole situation makes no sense to me, and I know a lot of other people who follow the industry are confused too. I don't see why anyone at this time in electronic music would split the two events up for any other reason than drawing a large crowd to Miami twice as opposed to once (for revenues) - which IMO is a pretty bad reason. I don't know who is repsonsible for making this decision, but I believe WMC will suffer more than UMF, and I think that that's apparent judging by the fact that early-bird UMF tickets sold out in less than one day (and it has zero confirmed artists) and DJs across the world are tweeting to boycott WMC.
Regardless, this whole situation is pretty depressing to the industry, as WMC and UMF have been looked at as the week-long pinnacle which defines electronic music and a mecca for international DJs and fans for over a decade. It is truly a shame the individuals will now have to choose, and the fans will be split, rather than having one united celebration as its always been. This news honestly saddens me to deliver, and now I have no idea where to spend my money. My heart is pointing toward UMF rather than WMC, but I will keep you posted on my final decision - good luck guys.
Link to UMF's website.
Link to WMC's website.
Link to Resident Advisor's article on the situation.
Link to MTV's article on the situation.
could be viewed in many different ways:
ReplyDeleteWMC was, for a long time, a legitimate conference and less about the parties. That has changed over the years, and maybe this was a step to going back to that? not really sure why, but it definitely is a huge schism in the party scene (and from the looks of it most parties will happen the week of Ultra)
it also could be a deliberate separation of WMC from ultra -- they are always associated with each other but are put on by different groups (at least i think so)
either way, i think it may be the decline of WMC in general...whats WMC without the parties and the killer festival at the end?
I heard on one of the forums that WMC could actually not find enough free room and any hotel in southbeach to host the conference because they were all pre-booked for UMF for that week....which is insane to think about
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