First Night Of Ultra Stumbles With Transportation Issues

– “Ultra Music Festival” (Korea)

Having moved to a new location this year, the first night of Ultra Music Festival faced transportation issues that brought a torrent of criticism from fans.

The festival was March 29-31 at Historic Virginia Key Beach Park & Miami Marine Stadium on the small island of Virginia Key.

“Last night, many of you experienced challenging transportation conditions leaving the festival,” Ultra organizers said in a statement on March 30. “This is unacceptable and inconsistent with the high standards you have come to expect from us. For this, we are sorry. As you might expect, we have already been working cooperatively with our city and county partners to promptly address and resolve these issues. We look forward to offering you a significantly improved transportation experience today and throughout the weekend, and we appreciate the opportunity to earn back your confidence and trust. “

The lineup featured a smorgasbord of electronic artists, and Complex reports that after the closing sets from Marshmello and Infected Mushroom, among others, on Friday, March 29, more than 50,000 fans waited for buses to transport them off the island, as ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft were not allowed at the festival.

And fans waited. And waited.  Many complained the lines were not being properly organized or maintained and at one point a tree caught fire, which according to Spin caused a brief stampede.

After growing tired of waiting for buses, thousands of fans decided to make the nearly three mile walk back to the mainland.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>.<a href=”https://twitter.com/ultra?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@ultra</a> you have 30k people doing a 5k walk back to mainland. This has to be sorted for tomorrow! <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/fyrefestival2?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#fyrefestival2</a> <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/fail?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#fail</a> <a href=”https://t.co/xHu8YI4quf”>pic.twitter.com/xHu8YI4quf</a></p>&mdash; Abhi Punj (@misspunjabhi) <a href=”https://twitter.com/misspunjabhi/status/1111881255421796353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>March 30, 2019</a></blockquote>

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It seemed the transportation challenges were indeed reduced for the second and third nights, as the number of complaints sharply dove.

Billboard reported that the local Brickell Home Owners Association filed a lawsuit against Ultra three weeks before the festival was staged, claiming the island was an inappropriate location for the festival and would cause environmental damage and terrible traffic.

Ultra is quite possible the most global festival brand, having staged events in Mexico, South Africa, Croatia, India, China, Brazil, Peru and many other locations. This year has already seen Ultras in Australia, South Africa and now the U.S., and will see editions in Ibiza, Singapore, Korea, Japan and Croatia.

The Miami edition featured Marshmello, Martin Garrix, The Chainsmokers, Infected Mushroom, deadmau5, Armin Van Buuren, Illenium, Zeds Dead, Jai Wolf, Galantis, Odesza, David Guetta, Zedd, Tiesto, Alesso, Armin Van Buuren, Odesza, Griz, and Afrojack.