Ultra Music Festival (UMF) is returning to downtown Miami’s Bicentennial Park for what is probably the most anticipated weekend of the year. Thousands will flock to Miami for Ultra’s first three-day event (formerly only Friday and Saturday) on Friday, March 25, Saturday, March 26 and Sunday, March 27. The growth of the electronic music genre, from the past year alone, is clearly visibile through the expansion of Ultra this year and the growth of its headlining artisits.
Ultra is expecting 150,000 attendees over the span of three days this year, being the world’s first ever major electronic music festival to expand to three days and completely sell out. Being the first major North American music festival of 2011, Ultra Music Festival will no doubt raise the bar and set the standard high for live music everywhere. Spirits are already high in Miami as the stages are being built and the streets are getting crowded.
Headlined by Tiësto, deadmau5, The Chemical Brothers, David Guetta, Carl Cox and Empire of the Sun, it marks the first festival show of the season for Duran Duran, Pendulum, Crystal Castles, Cut Copy and more. Over 200 international leading electronic music performers, DJs, and cutting-edge bands will take UMF’s stages and tents by storm to make history and put on performances like we’ve never seen before.
“POP music festivals in 2011 face the same challenge as always: branding new dishes from the communal stew of touring bands. But through social media the taste making classes keep expanding, along with every alternative subculture; the festivals, in turn, keep swelling and diversifying, despite the economy,” wrote Ben Ratliff in the New York Times (February 17 [online], February 20 [print], 2011). “The Ultra Music Festival, in Miami, has grown to three days (from two) of electronic dance beats. This year’s edition, March 25 to 27, at Bicentennial Park, encompasses the mainstream names in trance and house — Tiësto, David Guetta and the ubiquitous will.i.am — as well as weird dubstep hybrids like Rusko, and live bands, including Holy Ghost!, from New York, and, gulp, Duran Duran.”
Recognized as the fourth Top Grossing Concert by Pollstar's mid-year issue in 2010, Ultra Music Festival can be expected to make headlines around the world again this year. Love and appreciation for electronic music, and the people who bring it to us, will continue to sky rocket over the course of this weekend, and long after Ultra Music Festival leaves its mark on Bicentennial Park once again.