South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Ultra Music Festival returning to Bayfront Park in March
Ultra Music Festival has a signed agreement — finally — from the city of Miami to return to Bayfront Park in March.
Festival organizers and city administrators signed the revocable license agreement Jan. 16, only two months before the three-day event is scheduled to open March 20. The deal was inked the day after the Miami Herald published an article about the lack of an agreement and two days after a group of downtown residents sued the city to invalidate the deal that allows the electronic dance music event to use the downtown waterfront.
Reports that a contract had been signed first surfaced in music blogs Wednesday. The agreement, obtained by the Herald through a public records request, includes many of the terms discussed when three of five city commissioners voted in July 2019 to approve Ultra’s return.
The festival will pay the city $2 million to use the park. The sound level from the festival cannot exceed 102 decibels at a distance of 60 feet away from each stage. The festival can run from 4 p.m. to midnight Friday, March 20, noon to midnight Saturday, and noon to 10 p.m. Sunday — shorter hours than the last festival.
“Because we’ve worked in partnership with the city of Miami for almost 20 years, we viewed the recent signing of the agreement as a mere formality when taking into account that our City Commission had long ratified Ultra’s return to Bayfront Park over six months ago amidst overwhelming public support,” read a statement from Ultra.
But the public support was not as widespread as Ultra made it sound. Several residents spoke out against the move, which came months after the previous festival inspired complaints from concert-goers and residents in other parts of Miami that heard the music and considered it a nuisance.
The commission had considered trying to draw the festival back to Bayfront Park after logistical problems arose when the event was staged on Virginia Key — another city site — in 2019. Commissioners had booted Ultra from Bayfront Park in
2018 amid political disputes on the commission and increased scrutiny from neighbors who complained about the closure of Bayfront Park for large events and the volume of the music rattling their windows and cabinets.
Now, Ultra is two months away from a much-discussed return to Bayfront Park. According to the direction of the commission in July, Ultra is required to pay the city $308,000 the festival owes from security costs from the 2019 event. The first half is due 10 days after the signing of the deal, and the second half is to be paid
10 days after the 2020 event. For the $2 million use fee, half is due in late February before Ultra moves into the park to begin setting up. The second half is due two days before the festival opens on March 20.