WMC/Ultra Music Festival 2011 Fiasco

[Tim Viper Recs]

Surprised there's no thread yet.. so to make a long story short, the conference/festival is held every year in Miami, usually in the last week of March (American spring break, etc.). WMC usually starts during the middle of the week (Tuesday/Wednesday) and runs through till Sunday, and Ultra Music Festival is on Friday night and all day Saturday.

This year WMC and Ultra have announced different dates. WMC has announced March 8-12th as their official dates, while Ultra has held onto the last week of March, holding their festival March 25, 26, 27 (now a 3 day festival).

This of course has caused a lot of drama and has artist and promoters alike taking sides and releasing their own version of the story.

WMC official site: http://wintermusicconference.com

WMC - Just The Facts

Winter Music Conference
March 8 - 12, 2011
Miami Beach, FL

***For Immediate Release***

November 17, 2010

At 12:57am today, Winter Music Conference’s founding Director’s received an email from Ultra Music Festival notifying them that the 2011 Ultra Music Festival would not be presented during and in conjunction with the 2011 Winter Music Conference. The notification was served despite a signed October 15, 2009 contract between the two entities which stated that the 2011 Ultra Music Festival would be presented during the five-day period in February, March or April 2011 designated and promoted by WMC as the ‘WMC week’. WMC organizers say “We were blindsided by Ultra’s last minute announcement this morning.”

“The date selection is based exclusively on venue availability. We present one of the most extensive programs of the year during peak season in Miami Beach. We are constantly developing our program in order to provide the best possible venues and hotels at the best possible terms for the artists, delegates and program participants.” Traditionally the WMC dates have ranged from mid February to the end of March.

“WMC remains committed to the artists, delegates and fans that have made the program what it has become over the last 25 years. The festivals, Ultra and many others, are amazing experiences for the fans and artists alike. By contrast the quintessential WMC experience is really about the camaraderie between pioneering artists and industry legends - walking into a club or pool party and seeing your favorite artists up on stage performing amongst their own peers. It is the unrehearsed chemistry that goes along with the amazing aggregation of artists, industry and fans converged on Miami Beach that make these once in a lifetime collaborations happen everywhere you turn - from the panel discussions and meetings to the incredible sounds coming from every nook and cranny across Miami Beach for five days straight. Our passion has always been about the love of music. We don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
http://wintermusicconference.com/eblasts/2011/ultra_release/index.htm

Ultra Music Festival official site: http://www.ultramusicfestival.com

Ultra Music Festival Statement
Posted on: November 18, 2010

To all music fans, artists, agents, managers, promoters, labels, sponsors and Ultra supporters who share our belief that it is all about the music:

Ultra Music Festival would like to address certain points in light of recent announcements made.

While the circumstances that have taken place this year have rendered it impossible for Ultra Music Festival and WMC to coincide on the same dates in 2011, we will use our best efforts to try and work with WMC and coordinate dates together in 2012.

First and foremost, Ultra Music Festival has always been an avid supporter of WMC and is grateful for the many years of working together with them. Throughout those years of our partnership Ultra has always admitted WMC delegates into the festival for free, speaking volumes to Ultra’s commitment and support of the music scene. It is with great disappointment that we could not host Ultra during the same week as WMC in 2011.

Due to WMC’s claim to us that they could not secure a convention host hotel on the last week of March to meet their facility requirements as a conference, they chose to go on the second week.

Unfortunately WMC did not take into consideration that during the second week of March the city of Miami hosts the annual Calle Ocho street fair, which attracts more than one million people into Downtown Miami for this free event. As much as we felt it was a bad idea to move the dates to the second week of the month with such short notice to the public, as it would cause serious logistical and financial issues to fans that have already confirmed and purchased travel to Miami for the last week, Ultra used absolute best efforts to maintain the relationship with WMC and join them in the move to the second week. However, this was rendered impossible by the City of Miami police department as they do not have the resources to host Ultra Music Festival and Calle Ocho in Miami on the same weekend due to the fact that all police resources will be outsourced to the one million person annual event.

WMC was notified of this by UMF in writing months in advance of this week’s announcement.

Second, being the last weekend in March in recent history has caused artists and everyone in the industry to rely on these dates to make their touring plans; same goes with music lovers who plan as much in advance to control the costs associated with their trip. We never felt comfortable letting those people down. We always felt a move like this would have to be done well over a year in advance to allow time for proper planning. Large-scale events and festivals traditionally do not move their dates around year to year.

Third, after UMF was notified of the possibility of WMC’s intentions of moving to the second week, we aligned ourselves with every contact and resource we had on Miami Beach to try and secure a host hotel for them on the last weekend as the second weekend was not possible for UMF as stated above. For various reasons, the options we presented were somehow not good enough for them to remain on the last weekend together with us.

Ultra Music Festival is one of the best consumer value propositions in the festival business. The price paid for each day at Ultra is equal to or in many cases less than what is paid to attend a single nightclub for one night. Three full days of Ultra includes 32 hours of more than 300 artists, DJs and bands programmed on 30 stages collectively. Ultra, like most major music festivals around the country, features exclusive performances by many artists, increasing the value of the festival experience.

Our fans agree as the on-sale launch this week shattered past ticketing performances with an increase of over 5,000 percent! We are on pace to sell out Ultra in advance this year.

UMF guarantees all of our loyal long time supporters and new fans alike that we have been humbly working harder than ever throughout the last eight months on producing this festival and the confirmed line-up is extremely impressive. Hands down the best Ultra has ever presented. Once again UMF will set the standard for EDM festival programming and production worldwide.

Phase 1 Line Up Announcement Is Imminent!!
Stay connected for very exciting artist announcements!!!
http://www.ultramusicfestival.com/ultra-music-festival-statement

Bottom line, I don't give a shit who's right or wrong, seems to boil down to petty promoter squabbles. It's lose-lose for everybody: the promoters, the artists, and the fans.

To use dnb as an example, DJ SS always holds World of Drum & Bass (WODNB) on the Thursday of WMC, and Virus/Ram always hold ViRam on the Friday of WMC (Wednesday last year). So now what are both of them to do? They could either a) stick with WMC and hold their events as usual b) make their events on the same week as Ultra c) not hold their annual events and only play Ultra. Both WMC and Ultra were a co-exhisting entity. Most of the big name artists that played WODNB and ViRam would also play at Ultra.

That's what was great about the whole week is that since you have all of these big name DJs in one place at the same time you get the best of both worlds. You get wicked club nights through the week with lineups you would NEVER see in North America, and you get to see them at a big festival. Some people only go to WMC, some only to Ultra, some to BOTH. The choice was yours. I can't see most DJs flying over from the UK to play club nights at WMC, then flying back to the UK, then flying back down to Miami a few weeks later for Ultra. Doesn't make sense for anybody.

 

[SMDtheMC]

Surprised there's no thread yet.. so to make a long story short, the conference/festival is held every year in Miami, usually in the last week of March (American spring break, etc.). WMC usually starts during the middle of the week (Tuesday/Wednesday) and runs through till Sunday, and Ultra Music Festival is on Friday night and all day Saturday.

This year WMC and Ultra have announced different dates. WMC has announced March 8-12th as their official dates, while Ultra has held onto the last week of March, holding their festival March 25, 26, 27 (now a 3 day festival).

This of course has caused a lot of drama and has artist and promoters alike taking sides and releasing their own version of the story.

WMC official site: http://wintermusicconference.com


Ultra Music Festival official site: http://www.ultramusicfestival.com


Bottom line, I don't give a shit who's right or wrong, seems to boil down to petty promoter squabbles. It's lose-lose for everybody: the promoters, the artists, and the fans.

To use dnb as an example, DJ SS always holds World of Drum & Bass (WODNB) on the Thursday of WMC, and Virus/Ram always hold ViRam on the Friday of WMC (Wednesday last year). So now what are both of them to do? They could either a) stick with WMC and hold their events as usual b) make their events on the same week as Ultra c) not hold their annual events and only play Ultra. Both WMC and Ultra were a co-exhisting entity. Most of the big name artists that played WODNB and ViRam would also play at Ultra.

That's what was great about the whole week is that since you have all of these big name DJs in one place at the same time you get the best of both worlds. You get wicked club nights through the week with lineups you would NEVER see in North America, and you get to see them at a big festival. Some people only go to WMC, some only to Ultra, some to BOTH. The choice was yours. I can't see most DJs flying over from the UK to play club nights at WMC, then flying back to the UK, then flying back down to Miami a few weeks later for Ultra. Doesn't make sense for anybody.

Shit's pretty fucking retarded if you ask me...but I'm seeing the glass half full here...taking no bookings down there, saving up with some fellow junglists and gonna bring an NY crew out to Inno in the Sun

 

[Bebop_has_a _posse]

Gonna hit the WMC myself i never really cared for the UMF. Once was enuff ('04) I just hope the labels remember that without the WMC there would have never been a UMF. And to be honest i never would have cared to see Angello or Kascade anyway so it's not much of a loss for me.

 

[Tim Viper Recs]

Gonna hit the WMC myself i never really cared for the UMF. Once was enuff ('04) I just hope the labels remember that without the WMC there would have never been a UMF. And to be honest i never would have cared to see Angello or Kascade anyway so it's not much of a loss for me.

Ya but my point is not what you like more WMC or Ultra, everybody is picking sides, which is what I'm against. I like both events and I like the fact that you always had the choice of both worlds. If you just wanted to go to WMC then you could do so and enjoy the hundreds of artists that were down for the whole week including Ultra. And vice versa if you just wanted to go to Ultra you could do so too. Or you could go to both. That's part of the reason both are so good is that you have all these artists down there at the same time because they can play anywhere from 3 gigs to 10 gigs in the space of a few days. A lot of the artists pay their own way down there b/c they can do so, now if the two are split up a lot of artists won't go, or will only go to one.