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ULTRA MUSIC FESTIVAL
Ultra Music Festival is now ultra important
The Ultra Music Festival, which started as an 'unofficial' beach bash, is now the crowning event of the Winter Music Conference.
Posted on Fri, Mar. 28, 2008Digg del.icio.us AIM reprint print email
BY MICHAEL HAMERSLY
mhamersly at MiamiHerald.com

RONNA GRADUS/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
Russell Faibisch, left, and Alex Omes are the founders and executive producers of the Ultra Music Festival.
They're playing our song
Ultra Music Festival continues
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The Winter Music Conference has drawn the world's best DJs, producers and industry schmoozers each March since 1985 for a week of glory, debauchery and fun in the sun. It's electronic dance music's biggest yearly event, attracting hundreds of thousands of beat-crazy revelers to Miami.

WMC's signature event is the Ultra Music Festival, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year with massive shows Friday and Saturday at downtown Miami's Bicentennial Park. But Ultra wasn't always the week's centerpiece.

Ten years ago, two local promoters shook up WMC by organizing Ultra, an ''unofficial'' shindig on the sands of Miami Beach that scored top international talent and hammered home what many attendees had known for years -- that some of the best events of the week have nothing to do with the stuffy seminars and presentations of the actual conference. The first Ultra -- held on the beach between 20th and 22nd streets -- featured renowned U.K. progressive house-music duo Sasha & John Digweed, dramatic Tampa act Rabbit in the Moon and German electronic dance legend Paul van Dyk. It drew 7,000 fans. Today, Ultra sells out the 55,000-capacity Bicentennial Park over its two days.

In the mid-'90s, Alex Omes was heading the Miami-based dance-music magazine DVOX when rave promoter Russell Faibisch placed an ad for an event. The two met and quickly realized they shared the same musical passion and created the Ultra brand for club nights. It grew into successful gigs at Groove Jet, featuring superstar DJs such as Paul Oakenfold and Danny Tenaglia.

Attending the Zen Festival, a sprawling, outdoor dance-music event in Tampa, gave the friends the idea to expand beyond nightclubs.

'We thought, `This is really what we wanted to do,' '' Faibisch said. 'WMC was around the corner, five months away, and we were like, `Everybody's gonna be here, and we have the contacts,' and we decided to put it together and do it.''

That decision didn't sit well initially with WMC founder Bill Kelly, says Omes.

''We didn't understand each other,'' he recalled. ``We were unofficial and Bill thought we were a threat to him, but over the years we became promotional partners and actually an asset to the conference, bringing more people to Miami altogether. The more the merrier.''

Kelly says he was concerned about losing control over WMC's image, as large events such as Ultra are difficult to police for drug use -- in fact, five years ago, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz threatened to shut down the event for that reason.

''Ultra was a separate entity altogether, and I always wanted to pair up with them, but I didn't want any type of bad press to follow the Winter Music Conference,'' he said. ``[Ultra] was a satellite event, not officially part of the conference, and if there were to be a drug bust, if someone were to die, I didn't want WMC to be associated with that. But when they moved downtown, they started using DEA agents and undercover police to make sure underage people weren't drinking or doing drugs. They cleaned their act up, and that's when we wanted to be part of them.''

Today, things are much smoother between the trio.

''Me, Alex and Russell are all good friends now,'' Kelly said. ``They understand the responsibility they have to police their event.''

Today, artists are lining up for stage time.

''Now we're up to over 200 acts and 16 stages over two days,'' Faibisch said. 'We can track online where our ticket sales come from, and as of [Sunday], we had sold tickets in 42 different countries, plus 50 states, Puerto Rico and D.C. It makes us feel really, really excited, and shocked -- it's pretty amazing. And that's without a true massive rock 'n' roll headliner like we've had in years past.''

One of Ultra's true roots is Paul van Dyk, one of the few DJs to perform at every festival. After spinning at Club Space in downtown Miami on Friday night, he'll give the Ultra crowd a taste of his latest album, In Between, Saturday before the headlining act, Underworld, takes the stage.

''I'm playing with my whole band live,'' van Dyk says. ``We do that on special occasions -- I've done it in London, New York and Los Angeles. It is my music but I'm playing it live, and by having live guitar and live drums, it gets a different feel, a more rock feel.''

Sasha says this week is particularly exciting for those who don't live in tropical climates.

''Everyone's been locked indoors for the last three or four months, and it's the first weekend to get out and get some sunshine,'' he says. ``You spend three or four months in London or New York . . . and you're really ready to get to Miami and put some shorts on.''

Faibisch agrees. ``Miami's the place for this atmosphere -- it's the Riviera of the U.S.''

''It's like the link to South America,'' adds Omes. ``And the beaches and the weather . . . Last year was the first year we experienced rain. And it was tough. All the British festivals experience rain every year, and they're used to it. Here in Miami, people shy away -- they don't like to get wet. It rained last weekend, but we're gonna have beautiful weather this year.''

By nine inch nails on Mar 29, 2008, 20:57 in Friendly Talkzone.