Ultra Music Festival could lose its prime waterfront location in Miami if it doesn’t agree to annually pay $2 million to the Bayfront Park Management Trust, which is more than double the current cost to stage the event. Ultra Music Festival has been held at Bayfront Park for 18 years. Under Ultra’s most recent contract to use the park, which expired after the March festival, Ultra paid a combination of a ticket surcharge and a use fee placed on each admission. Commissioner Joe Carollo, who is also chairman of the Bayfront Park Management Trust which is an agency who runs the park on its own budget that is separate from the city’s parks department, wants a new contract where Ultra is required to pay a $2 million flat fee. Carollo said the following to the Miami Herald:
“I’m telling them it’s no less than $2 million.”
The three-day concert has also angered downtown residents for years with its traffic and noise. Studies have been conducted analyzing Ultra’s noise impact to residents across the street and it proved that the persistent loud bass can cause hearing damage, rattle windows and fixtures. Rev. Pedro Martinez, who lives in a condo tower across from Bayfront Park, said that Ultra Music Festival is “making people’s lives a living hell” and also said:
“The city of Miami needs its central park to function as it was assigned, as a park to be enjoyed by both residents and visitors. Let’s stop the prostitution of the park.”
So is this really the end of Ultra Music Festival at Bayfront Park? That has yet to be seen, so stay tuned.
