This post may be 3 weeks too late but as I listen to the beats of house music this afternoon the thought dawns on me, "why have I not written about my Ultra experience?!" If you haven't heard of the Ultra Music Festival, sorry to break it to you, but you may have been living under a rock your whole life. Ultra is the world's premier electronic music festival...period.
Having grown up and living in Miami my whole life, I was exposed to Ultra in the seventh grade. I remember like it was yesterday. I was walking out of the American Airlines Arena after a Heat game and all I saw was an immense amount of people dressed in neon colors. I turn to my friend and said, "umm what are these people doing here?" and he replied, "I don't know. I think they may be here for some festival, it's called Ultra, it's like a giant party." At that time, I could never imagine myself going to this giant party with neon people of all different backgrounds. Boy was I wrong.
Ultra revisited me on my 15th birthday, it happened to be the same day. That night I watched the live stream and instantly fell in love with dance music. From that moment on, I knew I needed to attend. It took my parents some warming up but I finally convinced them to let me go two years later. At first it was a one day deal. But as time passed it turned into two days and finally, the week before the weekend I've been waiting for since my 15th birthday, I got the OK to attend all three days.
March 28th came and after a late start and a very long line (mob would be a better word), I stepped foot into the Ultra grounds and immediately felt the love in the air. There is nothing quite like it, dancing with your friends (and strangers who will become your friends) in the crowd to the music of the absolute best DJs in the world. To put mildly, it was simply amazing.
I was a little intimidated by the negative stories at first. The drugs, horror stories about lack of water in the main stage crowd, fist fights that could breakout within seconds. But my experience was far from those stories. I was not injected with a mystery chemical, I did not faint in the crowd, and I DEFINITELY did not make out with a tree. I just went with the flow, got myself close to the stage, and enjoyed the music with my friends. Even now, three weeks later, I find myself going into my camera roll looking at the pictures and watching those videos from one of the best weekends of my life. And everytime I do I'm automatically in a better mood and feel a little bit of the energy I felt those three days.
It's very true what they say about Ultra. The experience can't be explained, you just have to experience it for yourself. I can try to tell you what it feels like when the bass is so hard you can't breathe or talk, you can just dance. Or I can try to tell you what it feels like to see the amazing DJs who make the music you love. But I wouldn't do it justice. And once you experience the energy and the love that IS the Ultra Music Festival, you'll have a new respect and passion for electronic music that you have never had before