Music Festivals

Sander Van Doorn on the EDM Explosion, Bottle-Service Clubs, and Wrestling Gators

South Beach can be a dangerous place. Everyone is too sexy. The rich VIPs run the clubs. And even though electronic dance music is currently the biggest thing in pop culture, famous DJs still get kicked off the decks. Obviously, though, clubbing in Miami isn't as hazardous as grappling with giant r ... More >>

Maceo Plex at WMC, Miami Music Week, and Ultra Music Festival 2013

Ultra, WMC, and MMW 2013 Guide

Every March, Miami is seized by total EDM insanity, reverberating with bass, techno, house, trance, and everything electronic. With Ultra Music Festival (this year expanding to two weekends), Winter Music Conference, and Miami Music Week all falling within the same ten-day span, the uhntz-uhntz wi ... More >>

Louis Puig: "It Is True, I Sold Club Space"

It's that time of year again. And no, we're not exactly talking about Ultra Music Festival, Winter Music Conference, and Miami Music Week. We here at Crossfade are actually referring to the receipt of Louis Puig's incredibly detailed semi-annual "tell-it-like-it-is letter regarding EDM." His late ... More >>

Swedish House Mafia Headlining Ultra Music Festival 2013 With Opening, Closing Night Sets

When Swedish House Mafia's Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell, and Steve Angello announced their career-ending One Last Tour, saying goodbye to 26 cities across every continent, we here at Crossfade lamented, "Miami's not included." But we also doubted "a group who had a huge hit called 'Miami to Ibiza' an ... More >>

Miami Jazz Fest Canceled "Due to Poor Ticket Sales"

Despite once being "an essential mid-20th century] stopover on the Southern tour circuit for legends like Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat King Cole," Miami was never a straight-up jazz town. Our city's always been more about the crooners, salsa, disco, booty bass, freestyle, street rap, and e ... More >>

Ultra Music Festival 2013's General-Admission Passes on Sale! Right Effing Now! For $574.95!

How are your nerves, beat freaks? No doubt, you're feeling frazzled and fried ... Especially after watching Ultra Music Festival's early-bird tickets go up in a puff of uhntz-uhntz, i.e. totally sell out. Just 48 hours ago, you were sooo epically stoked when UMF organizers managed to generate unp ... More >>

Ultra Music Festival "Gearing Up to Make Global EDM History, Do Something NO Electronic Music Festival Has EVER Done"

Crazy glue that uhntz-uhntz-ing ass to your computer chair, beat freaks! 'Cause in exactly an hour, Ultra Music Festival plans to "announce something so big, so crazy, so intense that it will knock you off your seats and leave you thinking 'WTF.'" UPDATE Ultra Music Festival 2013 is expanding to " ... More >>

"Daft Punk at Ultra Music Festival!" Top Ten Fan Guesses for UMF's "Big Announcement"

Everyone is beat-freaking the fuck out, trying to guess what the big announcement coming from Ultra HQ is gonna be. The official teaser statement is all "We're gearing up to make global EDM history, and do something that NO electronic music festival has EVER done." That's a lot of caps lock. So yo ... More >>

Ultra Music Festival 2013 Expands to "Two Big Weekends!"

"Dance music has officially taken over America! This is it, dance fans! The moment you've all been waiting for!" Those were the superpsyched words that kicked off Ultra Music Festival's "so big, so crazy, so intense" announcement today. But then ... We here at Crossfade (like all y'all epically de ... More >>

The Weeknd Announces Show at the Fillmore Miami Beach on October 17

He's perhaps the most unrecognizable face in modern R&B, often photographed while hiding amid dark shadows. But Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye's music is anything but unfamiliar, especially if you've stumbled across a indie music blog over the past year. With three mixtapes, a co-headlining spot ... More >>

UR1 Music Festival 2012 Announces Venue: Bayfront Park

See also "UR1 Music Festival Promises Diverse Music Lineup, Art During Basel 2012 Weekend." "You are music. You are unique. You are diverse. You are love. You are life. You are one." That's the official mantra of Miami's newest superambitious music fest, UR1, a two-day concert event created by Go ... More >>

Little Festival, Big Message

No Name #2 at the Electric Pickle March 1

Ultra Music Festival Announces Miami Music Week Pre-Parties, Afterparties, and Pool Parties

​UPDATE Check out the lineup, date, and location for Ultra Music Festival's launch of its Ultra Live concert series. Less than two weeks after announcing its Phase One lineup (Avicii! Tiësto! David Guetta! Kraftwerk! New Order! Skrillex! 86 others!), Ultra Music Festival 2012 was already shoutin ... More >>

LA Riots Erupt at Arkadia on January 6

Via facebook.com/LARiotsOfficial​Often associated with violent street crime, urban decay, and N.W.A., South Central Los Angeles is generally considered a residential wasteland, the type of gritty, big-city neighborhood where dreams die and poverty prevails. During the early '90s, it was the epic ... More >>

Blond:ish Gets Ambitious at Arkadia June 24

​Alfred Hitchcock populated his films with blonde women, believing that film audiences would be more suspicious of brunettes. But when you see two platinum manes bouncing up and down behind Arkadia's decks this Friday, you should suspect that this fair-headed DJ duo is conspiring to do evil thin ... More >>

A Post-SXSW Miami Music Report From Forward Motion Records' Fernando Perdomo

The most inspiring Miami band of SXSW 2011 ... Pretty Please!​Hey, Miami! Let me report that SoFla was well represented at SXSW 2011 with a large variety of acts playing around Austin: ANR, Dreaming in Stereo, Locos Por Juana, Panic Bomber, and Surfer Blood all played official showcases that mad ... More >>

Go Get Your PhD in Party Science! See Winter Music Conference 2011 Schedule of Events

Join party professor Paul Van Dyk at WMC 2011.​Believe it or not, there is indeed such a thing as party science. But you're not going to learn it by running the club circuit like a lab rat on double doses of Ritalin. If you really want to develop yourself into a certified master of the electronic ... More >>

David Guetta at Mansion for Art Basel December 4

Miami Beach Will Grant Permits to Parties Outside of WMC, MTV News Report Inaccurate

Club Space owner Louis Puig.​In an interview with MTV News today, Club Space owner Louis Puig claimed, "The [City of Miami Beach] will not give out weekly permits for pool or beach parties outside of WMC [week], which means that there will not be Pool Parties the week of Ultra. What is Miami witho ... More >>

Röyksopp Confirmed to Perform at Ultra 2011

​Norwegian duo Röyksopp just released upcoming list of North American tour dates. On that list is a scheduled stop at Ultra Music Festival on Friday, March 25. This is in addition to an already confirmed appearance by Crystal Castles the following day on March 26. Festival Outlook says Erick Mori ... More >>

2010 Miami Music Festival, November 11 to 14

Christopher Lawrence

City Life Readers' Poll Winners

Can't Make it to Bonnaroo This Weekend? Catch the Action Live on YouTube and NPR

If a trek to Tennessee for Bonnaroo just wasn't in the cards this year, we have two ways for you to catch the Music and Arts fest from the comfort of your South Florida digs. First, the three-day arts and music festival is hosting a YouTube page with exclusive live webcasts from June 11 thr ... More >>

Video: Afrobeta "Play House" Live at Ultra Music Festival 2010

We probably promised a few posts back that we wouldn't talk about Winter Music Conference or Ultra Music Festival anymore, but we just stumbled across this great video of Afrobeta performing live at last month's festival. The duo got an awesome late-evening slot on the Bayfront Live Stage, which sou ... More >>

Michaelangelo L'Acqua Sets the Soundtrack for the W Hotel Brand

Michaelangelo L'Acqua spinning at the W South Beach during Winter Music Conference.​This past Winter Music Conference, the W South Beach held a private party in the penthouse of the hotel which featured a live performance by the Golden Filter (a personal favorite) and celebrated the release of Sym ... More >>

Ultra Music Festival 2010 at Bicentennial Park in Pictures

Photo by Ian WitlenDeadmau5 performing at the main stage at Ultra Music Festival.​It's over. Jesus Christ! It's over! We are sad and glad at the same time. Sad because we have to wait another year for the next Ultra Music Festival. Glad because our city can return to some kind of normalcy, and we ... More >>

What quarter-century crisis? WMC celebrates its 25th birthday bigger and better than ever

New Times Winter Music Conference Guide 2010 in Newsstands Now

​After much blood, sweat, and tears it's finally done and hot off the presses. In newsstands today all over Miami you will find our Winter Music Conference Guide 2010 put together by Miami New Times music editor Arielle Castillo and featuring work by regular Crossfade contributors Esther Park, Sea ... More >>

Ultra Early-Bird Tickets Sold Out

Photo by Ian WitlenMSTRKRFT at 2009's Ultra Music Festival.​If there is one guarantee in life is that Ultra Music Festival's lineup is always one of the best in the country. Need proof? Early-bird, two-day tickets to the festival, which sold for $99.95, are gone. What's impressive is that it happe ... More >>

Five Miami Bands Play the Florida Grammy Showcase at FMF on Wednesday

photo by Karla Garcia, via grammy.comThe annual Florida Music Festival kicks off its eighth year tonight, and while it's up in Orlando, more and more South Florida bands are turning towards the multi-day music crawl as a sort of SXSW lite. Billed as featuring 250 performances across 15 stages and th ... More >>

WMC 2009: Late of the Pier, Rye Rye at The Vagabond

So after wrapping up a couple of feel-good stories about a female inmate being sexually assaulted by prison guards and the ridiculous shenanigans by some cops in a tiny place called Biscayne Park, I stepped out this past Friday to The Vagabond for a little Winter Music Conference R&R.  ... More >>

Ultra Music Festival Tickets Go On Sale This Month

Madonna's "Four Minutes" Release Party

A Southeasterner at SXSW

Highlights and lowlights from the nation's biggest industry extravaganza of new (and old) music.

Bands! Win a chance to perform at SPIN mag's legendary SXSW party next February...

Dubai by D.C.

Dance, Dance Evolution

Conference flexes its gene pool

Your Government at Work

Magical Maydaze

Kimya Dawson

Letters from the Issue of April 14 , 2005

Timbaland as role model, pizza as mathematical equation, WMC as rip-off

BEST ART CINEMA

Miami Beach Cinematheque

Texas High Notes

The SXSW music fest showcases the city as much as the artists

Austin Chronicles

Tales from the Texas music fest: Rock barely survives, honky-tonk rules, and Miami may yet host the Latin Grammys -- but no bombs, please

Careful with That Ax, Lilith

Five Days That Kind of Shook the World