By Ariana Vallejo & Mikey Pirante
Introduction
A year removed from a 20th anniversary that was capped off with a surreal reunion of Swedish House Mafia, Ultra received a lot of skepticism after announcing that the festival venue was anywhere else than Bayfront Park. Having nothing but past year’s live streams to compare my experience to, here is what Ultra Miami was like at Virginia Key.
Getting There
Ultra offered a few different ways to get to and from the festival. Free bus shuttles were stationed at 3 different locations around Downtown Miami. There was also a Ferry pass that you could buy for around $175 which we heard was fun and definitely worth the price. It never took us more than 25 minutes to reach the drop-off point.
Entering the Festival
So my first ever festival was Hard Summer 2014 and since then I think I’ve been to almost 10 different big festivals. Of these, Ultra was by far the easiest and quickest in terms of getting through security and into the festival. The lines were never more than 2-3 people deep and it never took more than 5 minutes before we were inside and engulfed by dance music.
The Stages
- Ultra Mainstage – SENSORY OVERLOAD. Featured world-class production with some of the best pyro and lazers I’ve ever witnessed.
- Live Arena – An intimate ambiance on a mainstage-type scale making it the best of both worlds. The production booth was kind of in an awkward position. It wasn’t as far back as other festivals and forced you to choose between being in the middle of the crowd or being behind the booth where you could also hear music from the Worldwide and UMF Radio stages.
- Ultra Worldwide – I was really looking forward to this stage after watching all of the live streams from prior years. The arching U-shaped design makes it one of the most unique stages in the world. In person, though, it was underwhelming. It was more narrow than anticipated and unlike years past there was only one way in/out making it difficult to get a good spot.
- UMF Radio – This stage deserved better than being positioned between the bathrooms and one of the water stations. Not a lot of flashy extras but it was a great place to get lost in the music.
- Resistance Arrival – Mikey’s favorite stage. Imagine combining EDC’s Basspod and Corona Beach to get a very intimate tiki luau with techno music blaring. Covered with sand and surrounded by fire, this stage was a good ass time. Best crowd at this stage.
- Carl Cox Megastructure – All my years dealing with Rawhide’s crowded tents kept me from being able to appreciate how ridiculously awesome the Megastructure was. IT WAS AN EXPERIENCE FOR SURE.
- Resistance Reflector – Spent the least amount of time here- again, not a big fan of tents anymore – but it definitely gave off an old school, underground rave vibe once the sun went down.
- Oasis – This was such a cool, little stage that made you feel like you were in someone’s backyard. Surrounded by hammocks and large chairs, the Oasis was exactly what it’s name suggest: a pleasant or peaceful area in the midst of a difficult or hectic place.
Ultra Day 1
European Invasion
We got to Ultra around 5:30pm because we were exhausted from Brownies and Lemonade’s warehouse party the night before. The first set we heard was Fedde Le Grand, who we could hear from the water station and decided to check out. Fedde was one of many European DJs to grace the Mainstage on Friday and there was definitely no shame in being a Mainstage h*e on Friday when you get Fedde Le Grand, Nicky Romero, Alesso, and Tiesto.
Live Arena Louis
It was pretty hard to stray away from main stage and Resistance Island on Friday, but I refuse to ever miss a Louis the Child set. Robby and Freddy have grown so much since first falling in love with them at Global Dance Festival 2016 in AZ.
Resistance Island
Did you even go to Ultra if you didn’t see Carl Cox? If you’ve never seen one of the original Ultra lineup posters, you’ll find nothing but Techno and Drum n’ Bass legends. The least we could do was check out R.I. for a couple of hours to see how the scene is doing.
Best Set of the Night – Odesza
For 75 minutes, the crowd at the Live Arena Stage went on a spiritual journey curated by one of the hottest duos in EDM right now. Their visuals were breathtaking, the crowd was fantastic, and for those who saw Odesza at Coachella in 2018 well… this blew that set out of the water. It was an amazing set to experience with Mikey and I got butterflies watching this set with the love of my life.
Ultra Day 2
Following the Music
Other than Martin Garrix and Illenium, we didn’t really have anyone we absolutely had to see this weekend, allowing us to wander more and let the music draw us in. We started the day with Gud Vibrations where Slander and NGHTMRE brought out Shaquille O’neal. Still upset we left before getting a chance to mosh with Shaq lol. Instead, we made our way to some shade towards the back of the Live Arena for G Jones. I wish he had gone on after the sun went down because it would have enhanced the experience. We decided to go to church after G Jones, by catching Tchami at mainstage. To put simply: Tchami +Ultra Mainstage = OH MY GOD. We would’ve stayed for his entire set if our feet weren’t starting to hurt, but we needed to take a break to save our feet for Illenium and Martin.
Illenium @ Live Arena
When Mikey found out that Illenium would finally be playing at Ultra for the 1st time, it was pretty much a lock that’d we’d also be flying out to Miami for our first Ultra. This was our 5th time seeing Nick and each time he throws more and more hard sh*t into his set. Walking back to the busses that night we met a guy who saw our Illenium jerseys and had to tell us how blown away he was by Nick’s set. I guess his friend group told him to expect a lot of crying girls at Illenium so he was shocked when he found himself headbanging so much. Expect to hear more filth in Nick’s sets in 2019.
Martin Garrix @ Mainstage
I’m not sure about you all but when I think of Ultra, one of the first names to pop into my head is Martin Garrix. He’s one of the best Djs/producers of his generation and at 22 yrs young, he’s already a legend. The only thing I can say about his set is HOLY LASERS! .
Best Set of the Night – GRiZ
Aside from the fact that I live and breathe for Illenium and Martin Garrix, GRiZ was my favorite set day 2. GRiZ played so many vibey throwback songs like ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ by Marvin Gaye. I was dancing non-stop during his set especially when he brought out the University of Miami’s BAND. Yes, you read that right. GRiZ had the brilliant idea of bringing out Miami’s band to play ‘All of the Lights’ and they played on stage with GRiZ until his set was over. The band closed out his set by playing GRiZ’s ‘It Gets Better’ which brought actual tears to my eyes. What a guy to include the community even if in just a small way. He also brought out Big Gigantic to play some saxophone for a few songs. (Big Gigantic played for GRiZ and Illenium after his own set so shout out to him.)
Ultra Day 3
Ultra Firsts
We started the last day with a DJ that we had never seen before and didn’t really know much about: Peekaboo. I only heard of him a few weeks before Ultra because Mikey showed me his remix of Zeds Dead’s Lights Go Down but after his set I think he is going to gain a lot of new fans this year. Other first times for us were Matisse & Sadko and Julian Jordan b2b Brooks (shoutout our friend Scott for telling us about the b2b). These guys all brought so much energy that was contagious. STMPD RCRDS absolutely rocked UMF Radio stage on day 3.
Ultra Royalty
If you’re pretty familiar with Ultra then you know that there are a handful of DJs that seem to play the festival each and every year: Carl Cox, Armin Van Buuren, and Tiesto to name just a few. Well day 3 was full of these household names and luckily we got to catch two amazing sets from Ultra family’s Afrojack and David Guetta. Both played mainstage and both absolutely killed their sets. Afrojack brought so much passion and energy to his set while David Guetta reminded us why he’s been one of the most influential people in music the past decade or so.
Best Set of the Night – TIE (Ariana – The Chainsmokers / Mikey – Vini Vici)
This might not be a shocker to most but my all-time favorite set from this day was the Chainsmokers. I know everyone has negative or mixed feelings about them but as long as a DJ has me dancing my butt off during their entire set and plays songs I can sing to then they will win my heart. What won me over during this set was the fact that they incorporated Queen’s music and Drew interacted with the crowd by pulling a Freddie Mercury.
Mikey, on the other hand, will argue that Vini Vici had the best set of day 3. To his point, Vini Vici did have the best crowd control of anyone we saw over the weekend. They had everyone jumping around and going crazy. We watched them from atop the Ultra shop which gave us an amazing view so it was pretty remarkable to see
The Good
Ultra Crowd – Compared to other festivals, Ultra attendees were nice and very considerate of each other. Of course you had the handful of attendees who sucked but overall it was great. What was refreshing about Ultra was how many people from other countries were there. On our walk to Resistance Island we heard people speaking Spanish, German, Japanese, and French. During David Guetta we stood next to a nice, older couple from Brazil, and then were dancing next to some kids from Canada during The Chainsmokers. It was a nice reminder just how powerful music can be, bringing together thousands of people from a number of different backgrounds.
Ultra Food – They served your typical Island Noodles which are always a go-to but what stood out to me was their Lobster rolls. The lobster melted in my mouth which was pretty much equivalent to sex. It also wasn’t super expensive and I got full after one roll so that was a plus.
The Bad
Ultra Close – The Live Arena and Worldwide stage were maybe 100 feet away from each other and the UMF stage was pretty close to these as well. Nobody wants to be at an Odesza set and hear dubstep in the background. Just kills the vibe.
Ultra Shuttles – It wouldn’t be an Ultra Miami 2019 review without bringing up the whole bus issue on Day 1 that left hundreds of people stranded on Virginia Key with no other option than to walk 3 miles back to the mainland. If we’re being honest, though, it really wasn’t that bad. By day 3 people were choosing to walk back and after day 1 the shuttles ran smoothly.
The Conclusion
For it being the first year at this venue, Ultra killed it! They still have kinks to work out but overall the festival was amazing. If they can get more people using the ferry for transportation and rearrange the stages, Ultra will do perfectly fine in their new home. If you’re wondering if you should check out Ultra or not let me just say this: it’s not going to be as spiritual as Electric Forest or as immersive as EDC Las Vegas. You’re not going to see a lot of people dressed up and trading kandi. What you’re going to see is thousands of people from all over the globe partying to the best DJs the world has to offer. Ultra is just a weekend-long party, and I’m here for it.
-Ari and Mikey
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