Seems like the event has gotten too wild for Miami.....
(http://cdn.doandroidsdance.com/assets/2013/03/bassnectar-ultra-2013.jpg)
QuoteMiami mayor calls for Ultra Music Festival to end after security guard trampled
As electronic music fans are recovering from another year of the Ultra Music Festival, Miami's mayor is calling for the three-day music fest to be scrapped after a security guard was trampled at the event on Friday night.
QuoteThe festival is known for its wild antics, and this year 153 people were treated by paramedics during the three-day event. Additionally, 84 arrests were made at the festival
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/03/31/ultra-music-festival-miami-mayor-end-security-guard-trampled/
QuoteMiami officials seek to end annual Ultra music fest, cite 'chaos'
Miami's mayor and a city commissioner say they plan to introduce a resolution to prevent Ultra from receiving a permit next year to stage the event downtown.
"About 77,000 people are in a place where there's only one way in and one way out," said Miami commissioner Marc Sarnoff.
He also said drug use at the event, and the deafening noise was disrupting sleep for Miami's downtown condo residents. "They have to leave for the weekend to get a night's sleep," he said.
"Nobody puts anything of this nature in their downtown," he added.
full article: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/us-miami-ultra-idUSBREA2U17H20140331
I am fairly sure Jacksonville would freak out about this from the get go, regardless that 100,000 people flock to the downtown area fill up every hotel and rental for miles around and throw money out the window. I used to go quite regularly back in the day, but the music is meh and the kids have gotten crazy but honestly that is EDM festival culture across the states wherever you stick +100,000 bros and teens if you dont have things policed what do you expect.
It's a shame what happened to that security guards and all festival promoters need to be on notice. The reality is festival culture is a huge money maker, comcast and every major entertainment company has bought into it.
They just need to do better diligence in making these big events safe for everyone.
This was from back in the day when Usuaya came to jacksonville needless to say it didnt stick around.
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/052798/met_2b1NOISE.html
Councilman hears beat at 3:30 a.m.
By David Bauerlein
Times-Union staff writer
The Usuaya music festival, which has met community opposition in other cities, might face a similar backlash in Jacksonville after the all-night blend of pulsating music woke City Councilman Howard Dale in the wee hours Monday.
The festival, held at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds, ran from Sunday night through 8 a.m. Monday, a time span that Dale said is too long and too late for a music festival because that's when people in surrounding neighborhoods are trying to sleep.
But city officials said they received only a few complaints from the neighborhoods about the noise, and police said the thousands who attended the event were under control.
''It woke me up at 3:30,'' said Dale, who lives about a mile from the fairgrounds. ''It sounded like a big boom box was on the curb of my front yard, and although there were times when the so-called lyrics were not audible, the bass was always audible.''
The Usuaya festival played last year in Orlando, where an arealawmaker has been critical of such gatherings. State Rep. John Morroni, R-Clearwater, has said ''raves,'' the late-night dances that the festival is modeled after, are ''drug-taking events that turn these kids into zombies.''
Nan Coyle, director of sales and marketing for the Jacksonville Fair Association, said the association will consider the impact of the festival on nearby neighborhoods if the Usuaya festival's Orlando promoters want to come back to Jacksonville.
The promoters could not be reached for comment.
Coyle said the concert drew a ''well-behaved crowd'' and the concert promoters were ''cooperative.''
''But obviously, if it's a problem for the community in which we live and work all year-round, we wouldn't want to do anything that would cause problems in that regard,'' she said.
Coyle said the festival was supposed to move all the performances indoors after midnight. But a delay in the appearance of a headlining act, the rap group Run-DMC, disrupted the schedule so performances were taking place outdoors for several hours after midnight, Coyle said.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office made no arrests during the festivals. Police spokesman Gil Smith said ''five or six people'' were taken to the hospital for treatment of alcohol- or drug-related illnesses.
The festival drew an estimated crowd of 3,000 to 4,000, and police who handled security ''said it went very smoothly. They expected it to be a little more trouble than it was,'' Smith said.
Mayor John Delaney's office received just a few complaints about the event, said Susan Wiles, the mayor's chief of staff.
''They were isolated,'' she said. ''I would say they numbered in single digits.''
Dale, who lives in the St. Nicholas neighborhood on the opposite bank of the St. Johns River from the fairgrounds, said he has received complaints from other residents about the music disturbing them in their homes.
''It was maddening,'' said Jan Miller, a leader of Citizens for Amphitheater Awareness, a group that opposes building a bigger amphitheater at Metro Park, which is near the fairgrounds.
Dale plans to review whether the city should have a cut-off time of midnight for music festivals.
''Going from midnight to 8 a.m. is ridiculous,'' he said. ''A lot of communities won't tolerate it, and that's why they have ended up here because we do tolerate it - for now.''
But Ray Mueller, the owner of Club Culture, a Jacksonville store that specializes in the ''house music'' that the festival plays, said the city should do more to market itself as an entertainment center for tourists.
''You cannot play anything without people from the south bank freaking out,'' Mueller said. ''If the sidewalks roll up at midnight, nobody is going to want to come to Jacksonville. You can't be just football and the beach.''
I live closer to the fairgrounds than CM Dale and never heard a peep.
Quote from: jaxlore on April 01, 2014, 03:46:07 PM
I am fairly sure Jacksonville would freak out about this from the get go, regardless that 100,000 people flock to the downtown area fill up every hotel and rental for miles around and throw money out the window...
So jaxlore, you think that the city would never go for an EDM festival? I've actually been considering doing one here. I recently moved here from the Orlando area and my company does event production. It does look like EDM was pushed out of Jax a few years ago but I think a festival would be a great catalyst to bring that music back to Jax. Obviously it would have to be well controlled in light of the Ultra story of the security guard...
Quote from: marty904 on May 27, 2014, 07:51:18 AM
So jaxlore, you think that the city would never go for an EDM festival? I've actually been considering doing one here. I recently moved here from the Orlando area and my company does event production. It does look like EDM was pushed out of Jax a few years ago but I think a festival would be a great catalyst to bring that music back to Jax. Obviously it would have to be well controlled in light of the Ultra story of the security guard...
As much as I'd like to tell you how awesome I think this would be, I can't. In the late 90's early 2000's Jax had a pretty awesome EDM scene. Between here, Orlando, Tampa and Gainesville, you could see most, if not all, of the DJs that were global at the time. Local DJs with a sort of celebrity status: Kinesis, Goodman, Alvarez are the three that pop in my head first. RITM, Icey and Baby Anne pretty much once a month for a Florida Breaks kind of night. With the headliners coming through on a regular basis: Sasha, Tiesto, John Digweed, BT, Superstar DJ Keoki (HA!), LTJ Bukem, Aphrodite (At Fat Kat !?!), hell, even Oakenfold (love or hate) even came and played a CD once or twice. ;)
I enjoyed many of these shows. I remember standing in line at 618/Paradome/Milkbar @ Paradome many nights with lines around the corner, down Jefferson and back again up Bay St. Club Kids and Goth owning 5 points on Saturday nights. The hellish drive to and from Evolution both at 2-3am and then again around sunrise. Coming out of Milkbar and having to get re-adjusted to open spaces. Ending up at someone's house, somewhere in town, with 30 other people you just met and everyone continuing the party through the next day listening to some mixtape by an anonymous bedroom DJ that was 'the best mix ever'!
I also have very vague recollections of many of these shows. The drug culture was pretty rampant, and there was no attempt at hiding it. It was pretty much out in the open at the time. And I'm pretty sure that's why the scene also came down pretty hard and fast. I can honestly say that I really didn't notice the 'other' side of the drugs. Guns weren't an issue. No hospital trips. No thievery or fights or mean-spirited shenanigans. It was an awesome 4-5 years, that also involved multiple group trims to Miami for Ultra for a weeklong party of clubbing and spending ridiculous amounts of money, but instead of ending up hanging out with a couple of people from the southside of Jax, you found the same fellowship and at anytime, you were partying with a group from Rio, London and Memphis, TN in some rando hotel room or condo.
All this being said, I don't see that scene coming back to anything close to what it was for a couple of reasons that I would have a hard time explaining. The main reason is that I don't think the music resonates the same, at least it doesn't with me. I don't hear anything today that remotely 'brings me back'. All I hear anymore are anthems that do nothing but build and break and AcidPro DJs that call a 20 sec overlap from song to song a mix. Hell, Spotify does 12 sec, doesn't even try to beatmatch and sounds cleaner than most. And to this day, when I want to chill to a mix, I youtube one of Sasha/Digweed's Northern Exposure mixes or some of the older Global Underground mixes.
I like dubstep, but I don't 'feel' dubstep.
I hear the Atlanta Freaknik is looking for a home.