For the second year in a row, Ultra Music Festival is ready to cancel the Miami edition of the festival and postpone it to the next year. According to a letter obtained by Billboard, Ultra Music Festival organizers are trying to lock 2022 dates as well as the festival’s location before officially announce the cancelation. Consultations with the City Of Miami officials for hosting the event on March 25-27 at Bayfront Amphitheater are on going.
According to Billboard, the letter sent by Ultra attorney Sandy York to the Miami city manager Arthur Noriega underline the threat brought by Covid-19 regarding going through with an event of big proportions such as Ultra Miami.
We anticipate that the City will again invoke the Force Majeure clause – York wrote – we respectfully request the rescheduled dates to be March 25, 26, and 27, 2022.
The license agreement permitted Ultra to host the festival at Bayfront Park for a single weekend in March; obviously, with the situation of serious uncertainty because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the festival requested a modification of the agreement to hold the event next year.
Besides announcing the new 2021 dates, Ultra Music Festival Miami has never released a lineup or announced something for this year’s edition; according to Billboard, no booking offers to artists for the show have been made.
Given the current status of the pandemic in relation to mass gatherings and the public health considerations of our local community, we are working cooperatively with our city partners and plan to release an official festival update soon – a representative from Ultra tells Billboard.
Ultra Music Festival Miami has been the first major music festival to cancel its operation in 2020 because of the global pandemic of Covid-19. Due to the time of year the festival is organized, the end of March, Ultra Miami has been the festival that suffered the most the pandemic. Every Ultraworldwide event has also been canceled with the exception of Ultra Taiwan, the only mass festival that happened last year.
Considered by Ultra Miami as a “postponed event,” emails started to be sent to the customers offering new tickets for the 2021 or 2022 edition but with no refund options. The choice brought a lot of concern between customers with even the start of class actions went into arbitration at the end of last year.
No official communication has been issued about 2021 ticket holders. It’s likely that Ultra Miami organizer will apply the same process as last year, with 2021 tickets been converted for the 2022 edition of the festival.
