Emily Hall
They say the third time’s the charm, right? Every year, I am one of the hundreds of thousands to make my way to Miami for one of the biggest weeks of the year in electronic dance music. While the weeklong function serves as the ultimate pre-game to Ultra Music Festival, the actual festival always takes the cake for me, providing fantastic performances and some of my favorite stage production set ups.
With UMF 2016 being my third year in Miami, I can honestly say it was definitely the best outing for the fest that I’ve experienced. While there’s always room for improvement in certain areas such as crowd control and logistics, Ultra, for the most part, has got it down in terms of curating one of dance music’s best festivals.
Right off the bat, it was safe to say that deadmau5’s A State of Trance set was going to be one of the most sought after sets of the entire the three day event; however, actually experiencing the crowd mania that accompanied it was far worse than I could have ever imagined. Honestly, I’m not even sure if the Megastructure that played host to the ASOT stage could’ve been more packed.
What I thought was thinking ahead and arriving to the stage halfway into Markus Schulz’s set, actually proved to be way too late with far-fetched hopes of securing a spot under the Megastructure. Although I was able to squeeze my way through to a decent spot, largely due to my expansive crowd weaving skills, the elbowroom was far too minimal for my liking and the crowd leaked out past the roof of the Megastructure into the open area where festivalgoers were constantly walking through.
While a trance set from deadmau5 was definitely worth the hassle of fighting my way into one of the busiest and most packed crowds I’ve ever seen, the ASOT stage was definitely not prepared to house the incredible amount of people who came to watch Joel perform.
I also can’t say that I liked how The Chainsmokers performed at Ultra Worldwide, as that stage may have been equally if not more packed than ASOT during the nighttime sets. It was nearly impossible to cut through the street alongside Worldwide once The Chainsmokers took the stage; the crowd spilled out all over the street, not to mention the hill on the other side of the stage looked like a sea of ravers all smashing into each other.
The Chainsmokers are definitely at a point in their career where they can successfully wrangle the Main Stage, where more space sanctions for a rowdier crowd – especially when they opened by teasing their beloved track “Roses” and took an unexpected turn into a trap-induced beat where the entire crowd broke out into aggressive dance, making it even harder to slide through the masses.
To be fair, though, Ultra definitely felt more packed as a whole throughout all three days. Switching stages consistently felt like I was traveling miles while moving at the pace of a snail and getting out of the festival at the end of each night seemed more difficult due to the upgrade in security fencing.
All that being said, however, given that Bayfront Park is a smaller venue for a large-scale electronic music festival such as Ultra, the arrangement of the stages certainly worked out well and culminated in very little sound pollution overall, which is always a good thing.
Putting aside the logistics issues, which in all honestly, most festivals still deal with, Ultra put on a pretty impressive show this year. From the talent playing the event to the production and some truly special moments, there was a fair amount to like about 2016’s edition of Ultra Music Festival.’
Coming back for its second year in a row, Resistance received the biggest upgrade out of all the stages with the introduction of Arcadia Spider. Taking a glance at the set times revealed a mysterious “Arcadia landing show,” with only a few sketch concepts and Resistance trailer to divulge any details about the return of Ultra’s newest stage addition. If you happened to make it to one of the aforementioned landing shows though, you were undoubtedly satisfied with the pyrotechnic-enhanced display.
Despite a powerful load of closing sets on Sunday evening, Resistance achieved a perfect equilibrium between a good-sized crowd of tech-house fanatics and still enough space to shuffle your heart out. While the closing slot times on Sunday boasted huge names ranging from Pendulum to Purity Ring to the conclusion of ASOT with Armin van Buuren, Resistance truly brought it home with The Martinez Brothers and Seth Troxler.
Possibly the most underrated stage within Ultra Music Festival, however, rests in a tucked away sector of Bayfront Park, securely located in the middle of Ultra with only one way in and one way out. The UMF Radio stage enjoys an incomparable outlook of the beautiful bay to the left with a clear view of a portion of the Miami skyline to the right. Due to the deep and concealed whereabouts of this stage, the crowd is typically a faction of festival attendees who know exactly what music they are looking to hear.
Skrillex’s imprint OWSLA made the UMF Radio stage its home on Saturday night with performances from Valentino Khan, Louis The Child, and a closing set from a myriad of OWSLA all-stars. However, the two acts that stood out the most were AC Slater b2b Chris Lorenzo and Getter.
Night Bass founder AC Slater went behind the decks with Chris Lorenzo, providing a much needed playful day time set with the deepest of house music. With what was probably the most merch I’ve ever seen thrown out at a stage ever, OWSLA rung in true diehards who were already drenched in fresh label gear, as well as recognizable designs from Getter’s new clothing line Trippy Burger.
Getter himself also threw down a tasteful set with tunes fluctuating from his older dubstep material to a couple songs off his new EP Radical Dude! There was also a special appearance from Nick Colletti, to which the entire crowd yelled “suh dude.”
It goes without saying that the single artist who rocked Ultra the hardest though was deadmau5, with a momentous two sets and a surprise appearance on the Main Stage with Pendulum performing “Ghosts N’ Stuff” for the festival finale.
When word broke out that The Prodigy would no longer be playing the second day of the festival, rumors and predictions circulated the festival grounds as to who would be the replacement act. It was only a matter of time though until festival organizers announced that deadmau5 would be substituting for The Prodigy at the Live Stage.
Although it was disappointing to not be seeing The Prodigy, Joel came through with an assorted impromptu set in which he played out some of his classic throwback electro-progressive tracks – including a very sentimental “Strobe” session that hit everyone at the pavilion with the feels big time.
Cool toned visuals that illustrated jellyfish and quintessential glitching mau5 graphics proved that Joel’s team was very much on point despite the last minute nature of the set. From here on out, it only got more entertaining as the DJ placed his mau5 head on and walked around stage. Eventually, he grabbed the mic and closed out his Live Stage set in absolute elegance:
“My name is deadmau5 as you know. Perhaps you’ve heard of me, I’m kind of a big deal on the Internet. If anyone else cancels Ultra, I’m your guy.”
Then, Zimmerman carried on only to drop the mic and step down from the stage, with the crowd begging for an encore. Without a doubt, deadmau5 finished off the second day strong, leaving the Live Stage crowd both thoroughly impressed and speechless as we all slowly exited the festival with one final day to go.
Despite Bayfront Park feeling more overcrowded than recent years, the downtown spot has become one of my favorite festival venues out there. As a large-scale music festival located in the heart of downtown Miami, the organizers really know what they’re doing in order to create the most optimal experience for those in attendance. Every year, Ultra Music Festival is the perfect wrap up for such an action-packed week. The event holds a special place in my heart for being both my first and favorite electronic dance music festival in the world, and that certainly hasn’t changed after this year.