While the newer, more affluent residents of Miami took an unprecedented stand against Ultra Music Festival, the city of Miami has key officials who seriously want the three day event back in Bayfront Park where it belongs. A new resolution was brought forward this week, sponsored by Commissioner Keon Hardemon. Another commissioner, Manila Reyes, said “We can not be running businesses out of the City of Miami. Hialeah wants it. Homestead wants it. Everybody wants it. That’s why I want to know what happened.”
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez has been quoted saying Ultra Music Festival represents “hundreds of millions of dollars in economic impact” for Miami every year. Hundreds of millions of dollars that have the potential to go somewhere else if the city kept acting so frequently hostile toward the major festival. “I was always a long-term supporter of Ultra as commissioner because I really felt that it went to the brand of the city,” Suarez said, acknowledging that changes would have had to be made if the festival stayed in Miami. “We had the attention of the world during that week similarly to Basel during Art Basel week for the arts community.”
It seems the internal fight to bring thousands of dollars from Ultra back into the city is still heavily underway…meanwhile, the Homstead-Miami Speedway is gearing up to host the latest iteration of the festival next March, having established the festival’s ending time to 2AM. After making due with Virginia Key Beach Park and the Ultra 5k issue on 6 week notice, we’re not sure how willing the festival is to return to their old home.
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