With Made Event's long-standing Sunday School party going kaput before Winter Music Conference 2012, revelers were prepared to be deprived of a properly epic closing party.
But then SAFE Miami, Embrace Miami, and Liaison Artists came to the rescue with their first annual installment of Last Resort, the most buzzed-about new party at last year's WMC, held at Villa 221.
"As soon as we announced Last Resort, industry punters anointed the event as the 'spiritual successor to Sunday School,' [but] we never intended for that," SAFE's Diego Martinelli tells New Times. "For most of the time planning, we were not even aware they were not coming.
"As much as we loved and respected Sunday School," Martinelli adds, "we immediately set out to forge our own identity, and we are happy we achieved that. It started as a simple idea to do a cool closing party, but it turned into something much more special.
"Lots of things made it memorable. Maceo Plex, Maya Jane Coles, and Visionquest closing out the garden was among the highlights. Also, the late-night surprise show from Jamie Jones and the Hot Creations crew inside the Villa was the perfect cherry on top — a pretty magical closing to the week."
So partygoers' expectations for this year's Last Resort are sky high. "People were so pleased last year with the show," Martinelli says, "that it motivated us to ensure raising the bar for them in 2013."
Thus, the party plan: Bring back Maceo Plex for a repeat set; add Michael Mayer, Huxley, Dusky, George Fitzgerald, and Tiger & Woods to the mix; and then promise a final special guest headliner, "one of the current biggest acts in underground dance music."
The buzz just keeps getting bigger.
