It sounded like something for fabled Miami Vice coppers Crockett & Tubbs to investigate. A few weeks ago the organisers of Miami’s Winter Music Conference announced dates for 2011 and suddenly clubland was crying murder…
In a nutshell, next year’s conference was earlier than expected - two weeks earlier, running March 8-12. And within hours of the news, Miami’s other major bastion of spring-time dance madness, the Ultra Music Festival, had confirmed dates at the end of the month, March 25-27.
For many seasons now, the two king-size events have co-existed within the same late March slot; events with equally huge dancefloor kudos, and the unerring ability to attract tens of thousands of electronic music fans from all over the globe. In recent history, both have fed positively from one another and grown exponentially - so why the split?
Ultra Music Festival
It’s a question promoters, producers and superstar spinners have been asking repeatedly. Late last month, for example, Swedish House Mafia’s Steve Angello hit Twitter to exclaim: “If you want to experience all the good parties in Miami, don’t go on March 8-12,” before adding: “Will the real WMC please stand up!!!”
The confusing scheduling has been causing industry figures all sorts of issues. Many had already booked flights, tied down party venues and arranged meetings prior to the announcements, assuming Ultra and WMC would keep to their usual pattern. The sudden calendar shifts leave a major dilemma in terms of which week is best, career and business-wise, to attend.
WMC owner Bill Kelly confessed to MTV that “we’re going to be hurt a little bit.” In a subsequent update on the official Conference site entitled ‘Just The Facts’, Kelly’s team elaborated: “we were blindsided by Ultra’s last minute announcement.” Conference organisers indicated that Ultra Music Festival management had breached a supposed contract with WMC – in more specific terms “a signed October 15, 2009 contract between the two entities [stating] 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 ‘WMC Week.”
It has been strongly rumoured that the breach is down to Ultra’s inability to secure a special events permit at Miami’s Bicentennial Park for the weekend of March 11-13; this owing to the annual Calle Ocho Carnival, which should draw in more than a million revellers to the city’s downtown area. In turn, a lack of local authority resource is being blamed.
Calle Ocho Festival
But if mid-March was likely to create planning headaches for Ultra, why not re-position the Conference either side? Kelly plainly insists that he and his team have done nothing out of the ordinary: “We didn’t change our dates, we announced our dates.”
Indeed, history dictates that in 26 years of the Conference, the last weekend of March has only figured five times; furthermore, that the conference has ping-ponged, quite freely, between mid February and the end of the following month. Promoters and acts should have been prepared for anything within a six to eight-week window, according to Kelly.
Perennial Miami party promoters Made Event, whose previous prime-time WMC productions have been steered by everyone from Loco Dice and Richie Hawtin to Danny Howells and Armin Van Burren, are sticking to their original late March plans, and refusing to let local rifts impede their operation.
“We are sure some promoters and clubs will do their best to take advantage of both weeks and book events during both periods” the team comments. “However with most of the talent routed through the end of March already, all of the big events are happening then.”
It is Made Event’s opinion that the Winter Music Conference hasn’t been Miami’s major attraction for electronic dance lovers in over 10 years now. They talk about the parties, and the feeling that South Beach becomes some kind of honorary week-long Ibiza: “Once the fans see all of their favourite artists performing at the end of the month; that is when they will book their flights and hotels.”
If Made Event and Steve Angello are to be listened to – and let’s be honest, they hold plenty of sway – then many of Miami’s biggest parties will cosy up alongside Ultra rather than the WMC In terms of the Ultra Music Festival itself, there are already strong suggestions that Deadmau5 and Tiesto have been confirmed to perform; that, if true, will fuel further high-profile party action and the growing sense, certainly when you consider Ultra is running for a further day next year, that a new Miami week has been born.
Nonetheless, Kelly and his Conference would appear to have serious momentum behind their plans too, as a punchy November email from David Puig, owner of Miami’s legendary Space club, seemingly testifies. “WMC used to be about free parties with DJs and industry folks sharing and enjoying new music. Now, it is about greed and money” he beefs. “I love Ultra and what they bring to the game but I do not agree with their greedy strategy to manipulate and monopolize Music Conference. This is just not good for anyone.”
Several club forum posts readily echo that sentiment. A November 25 post by ‘Zach’ in one of MTV’s local Stateside chatrooms even goes as far as to highlight a supposed conversation between he and Ferry Corsten about the latter’s pledge to “never do an ultra [sic] where they are trying to force [me] to sign an exclusive contract and not be allowed to play at anything except the festival.”
Whether or not Corsten’s remarks are true, other key Miami players are lining up to give the Conference its backing. Promotional firm The Aurelia Group, who commandeered the W Hotel’s seriously in-demand Belvedere VIP Lounge at last year’s event, and who recently threw Swedish House Mafia’s storming Masquerade Motel bash in the city, have confirmed their association with the official WMC 2011 dates. “WMC is not about one event or one DJ” Aurelia president Lainie Copicotto states, “WMC is the bigger picture.”
Certainly, Kelly believes the absence of major annual DJ and party “institutions” during Conference week will revitalise WMC’s professional value and once more attract the serious ‘heads’ who want to work in clubland first and party later.
“If David Guetta decides to do his F*** Me I'm Famous party on the week of the Ultra Music Festival, then great. The clubs are going to benefit from that” he outlines. “But what will the delegates benefit from? The delegates will benefit from a new platform of all different types of good, new entertainment and new promoters. It is probably a better marriage, because these institutions only suck and take from… I think the separation of the Ultra Music Festival from the WMC will re-energise the business side of it again.”
For all his optimism Kelly is still concerned about the financial impact of WMC’s separation from Ultra. It is a widely established fact that around 25% of people who have previously purchased official WMC registration passes have done so to grab the complimentary ‘tie-in’ Ultra ticket.
And then there’s the creative impact, a point DJ legend Paul Oakenfold forced home to one local Florida blog last week. “It's a real shame in this current climate when electronic music is becoming really popular, that they are not working together” he laments.
Ultimately, however, despite heated arguments, confused silences and concerns over finance, logistics and creative progression, the Ultra and WMC camps remain stoically convinced about their new plans, and keenly aware of the lucrative opportunities next year’s calendar manoeuvrings will, or should bring. It’s been a turbulent fortnight for one of clubland’s most venerable institutions but then what is dance music without regular revolution?
The Miami heat is already on…
Words: Ben Lovett
