With all the Art Basel hype (only one week away, woooo), you can be forgiven if you forgot our previous announcement about the Miami Music Festival. In its inaugural year, it's a three-day shebang styled after bigger industry conferences like SXSW and CMJ, with simultaneous showcases at a bunch of different venues, and panels and workshops with industry folks. You can also be forgiven if that last sentence makes you really skeptical, considering how other large-scale local music festivals have gone off recently.
I'm happy to report this one sounds legit. First, the industry types coming are the real deal (although they do skew a little towards hip-hop and Latin). The panels actually sound useful and include a number of master classes with big names.
But what's comforting is that the showcases actually don't sound half-assed, and rather than showcase, say, the Spam All-stars over and over again, there is a pretty good spread of both local favorites and acts I had to look up myself. Unlike CMJ and SXSW, the bands are not all indie rock -- sorry, but that wouldn't work here. However, there is a pretty wide genre spectrum, and rock and roll is well represented within it. It'll just be competing at night against, say, a showcase of music from Trinidad.
Anyways, click here to check out the full schedule. There are about 20 to 25 simultaneous showcases going a night, which is almost unbelievable, across a few different venues and random tents across Brickell and downtown. The Miami Music Festival runs from Thursday, December 10 through Saturday, December 12, and if you're not interested in all the conference stuff you can buy a spectator wristband, or pay $10 at the door for an individual show. After Art Basel is over, we'll post our top picks for the showcases.
