For the 19th straight year, some of the top electronic music acts from across the world are making their way to South Florida for the annual Ultra Music Festival.
The three day event, which has been held at Bayfront Park in Downtown Miami every year since 2001 after taking place on Miami Beach the first two times, kicked off Friday with gates opening at 4 p.m. and scheduled to close at midnight. Gates open from 12 p.m. until midnight on Saturday and Sunday.
Miami Police and transit officials have spent recent weeks encouraging those coming to Ultra to use public transportation in an effort to relieve traffic congestion in the area. Both the Metrorail service in Miami-Dade and the Tri-Rail service running between Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade have announced extended hours of operation to account for additional passengers.
Several traffic changes will take place along Biscayne Boulevard starting Thursday. Those going southbound will be detoured west at NE 4th Street to 2nd Avenue to continue their route, while northbound traffic will be reduced to two lanes and shifted to the southbound lanes at SE 1st Street until NE 4th Street.
The ride service Uber will have their own area set up during the weekend, allowing concert goers to use the service to get to the event and back home - complete with a lounge area at Biscayne Blvd. and NE 6th Street. For more information, click on this link to get your first ride free up to $20.
The event posted a list of things that will be allowed and what will be banned during the three day weekend - as well as acceptable forms of ID you will need to get in:
*IMPORTANT SECURITY AND ENTRANCE POLICIES* pic.twitter.com/dwBPSDzN4Q — Ultra Music Festival (@ultra) March 20, 2017
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Police will be patrolling the event, which has seen a decrease in the amount of arrests over the past few years. 67 people were arrested – nearly half on drug related charges – during last year’s weekend. The event end in tragedy for one attendee as 21-year-old Adam Levine, a student at the University of Miami, was rushed to the hospital and later died.
Ultra has grown over its time, starting as a one day event in 1999 before moving to two days in 2007 and adding a third day in 2011. In 2013, organizers expanded the event to two weekends and bringing in over 330,000 people before moving back to one weekend the following year. In 2016, an estimated 160,000 people attended over the course of the weekend.
