Ultra A Hit In Korea

The Ultra Music Festival, which organizers have called the world’s largest electronic music festival, presented its first Asian event at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul, attracting 25,000 fans Aug. 3 and 30,000 Aug. 4 to see stars like Steve Aoki, Skrillex, Tiesto and Carl Cox.

The artists were obviously impressed by the turnout and the response.

“UMF Korea was easily [among the] top 5 festivals I’ve ever played,” tweeted Skrillex. “Crowd gave me goose bumps the whole time.” Cox reportedly wouldn’t leave the stage, forcing the concert to run two hours overtime.

The local presenters, UC Korea, had a hard time convincing festival headquarters, UMF Miami, that Korea would be the best place to launch UMF Asia, according to CNNGo.com.

“The other UMF locations – Ibiza, Miami, Brazil, Argentina – are places with a pretty strongly cemented party reputation,” the UMF Korea team manager told CNNGo. “That’s a huge factor in choosing the location for the festival. It’s about electronic music, too, but it’s also about people who know how to party.”

Apparently, the main reason UMF Miami decided to go with Seoul was the city’s “emerging reputation as a hot spot,” but it took three years of negotiation before it gave the go-ahead.

The only concern: Do the authorities appreciate Seoul being identified as a major party destination?

The people who attended UMF Korea came from all over Asia, and not just Korea.

“It’s a good thing, as long at the partying is in moderation,” a representative of the Presidential Council on Nation Branding in Korea told the website. “It seems to be a positive direction that adds to our aims of increasing the awareness of Korean culture overseas, and because of the tourism boost.”