After a relatively short legal battle, Ultra Music Festival Miami has won against Rapture Festival about the use of Virginia Key Island.
This may sound new to you but the legal battle between Ultra Miami and Rapture Festival is not. Everything started when the City of Miami denied the use of Bayfront Park for Ultra 2019 and the consequent relocation to Virginia Key Island, approved by the City of Miami itself.
During the same period of time, another festival, Rapture, was used to run on Virginia Key, taking advance of the massive crowd coming in Miami for the Miami Music Week.
With Ultra relocated at Virginia Key, Rapture started a lawsuit against Ultra claiming: “This was an opportunity for Ultra and [Event Entertainment Group] to shut down its competing Miami based festival held by Rapture.”
At the beginning of this month, the Judge quickly responded by tossing the lawsuit for fatal flaws in the Complaint. The lawsuit failed to demonstrate how Rapture has any standing to bring the lawsuit.
Additionally, the Complaint fails on its face to plausibly allege any unlawful conspiracy
or anticompetitive arrangement between Defendants. Plaintiff relies exclusively on conclusory allegations of conspiracy backed by no factual allegations whatsoever. Besides nearly two-dozen conclusory allegations of unlawful collusion, Plaintiff’s case seems to hinge almost entirely on the following allegation: “[t]he ridiculousness of allowing Ultra music festival in such an environmentally friendly location is absurd and a clear signal of an antitrust violation.”
At that point, Rapture had only another chance to amend its Complaint and try again until February the 13th. Unfortunately for Rapture, their new Complaint was as bad as the first one:
Additionally, the amended complaint is riddled with typos and paragraphs so poorly written that they are unintelligible. Dismissal is appropriate on those grounds alone. But, as discussed below, the amended complaint fails substantively as well.
Ultra, after the Court decision (full document) stated in a press release:
We are pleased that the Court has again declined to entertain, for the final time, the baseless legal claims
against Ultra.Hosting the festival at Miami Marine Stadium and Historic Virginia Key Beach Park provides us with the ability
to present the best and most transformative ULTRA MUSIC FESTIVAL that we have ever produced by way of
music, artists, experience, cutting edge and technologically advanced production elements and novel art
installations, including a new island concept for our globally renowned underground brand, RESISTANCE.
Ultra Music Festival Miami will take place on Virginia Key from the 29th to the 31st of March 2019 with an estimated daily attendance of more than 50,000 people. With 7 stages, a way larger venue then Bayfront Park and an entire Island dedicated for RESISTANCE, Ultra Miami is sot to be the best Ultra yet. The full guide for the festival, including tickets, lineup, timetable, maps, is available here.
