Ultra Music Festival reaches settlement with Miami residents after years of tension

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Ultra Music Festival has reportedly reached a settlement with Miami residents who opposed the event.

According to a new report from The Miami Herald, there may finally be an end to the years-long battle between the Downtown Neighbors Alliance (DNA) — an organisation representing 13 downtown apartment blocks in the city — and Ultra Music Festival.

DNA President James Torres announced that the group will now no longer seek to ban Ultra from its Bayfront Park location, where the mammoth event lands for three days during Miami Music Week each March. Torres, alongside Ultra spokesperson Ray Martinez, declined to discuss details of the agreement with the Herald.

The DNA submitted a lawsuit in January last year accusing the city of Miami of violating its own charter, permitting an illegal nuisance, and flouting its town public bidding laws. The lawsuit stated that “between 2012 and 2018, the City allowed Ultra to conduct music festivals in Bayfront Park, and blast catastrophic volumes of noise into Plaintiffs’ and other Downtown Miami residents’ homes depriving them of the quiet enjoyment of their homes, and also depriving Plaintiffs and other Downtown residents access to Bayfront Park for several months each year.”

An official statement given by Ultra organisers in February this year confirmed that the 2021 event will be unable to go ahead due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

Elsewhere, in April, it was reported that Event Entertainment Group — the umbrella company behind Miami’s Ultra Music Festival — had been sued in a new, eight-count class-action suit. According to a recent report from the Miami Herald, the latest suit, filed by Corwin Law in Boca Raton, is seeking damages in excess of $15,000 for a number of clients who purchased tickets to the “postponed” 2020 Ultra Music Festival.