{"id":1972,"date":"2011-03-20T21:28:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T01:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam-jackson.net\/blog\/?p=1972"},"modified":"2011-03-20T21:28:42","modified_gmt":"2011-03-21T01:28:42","slug":"tips-for-surviving-ultra-music-festival-in-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/03\/20\/tips-for-surviving-ultra-music-festival-in-miami\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 Tips for Surviving Ultra Music Festival in Miami"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As of this writing, Ultra Music Festival takes place in downtown Miami in 4 days and 18 hours. at 4PM on Friday, 50,000 people will invade the small downtown park and the party continues for three days finally ending Sunday at midnight. It&#8217;s my favorite event of the year. Ultra doesn&#8217;t turn out so well for a few people that attend. This sold out event has high security where you can&#8217;t bring in SLR cameras or tripods and they don&#8217;t allow outside food, drinks, alcohol or drugs. Unfortunately, it&#8217;s easier to sneak in a bag of ecstasy than it is a Canon 5D so, drugs somehow find their way into the festival each year.<\/p>\n<p>The hot Florida sun and 12 hours of straight dancing takes its toll on attendees each year and, as a long time attendee of UMF, I&#8217;d like to provide a few tips for those going to this year&#8217;s festival in Miami.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Avoid alcohol. Don&#8217;t drink an ounce of it while partying. Alcohol works in a similar way as coffee by forcing your body to pass more water than it would while drinking water or juices. Alcohol (even when complimented with bottled water) will lead you to become exhausted quicker and you may not make it back for day 2 or 3 due to headaches,\u00a0nausea\u00a0or muscle soreness. Trust me, drink heavily another weekend. Your $300 ticket and $400 flight aren&#8217;t worth being fatigued when your favorite DJ is on stage and you&#8217;re sitting under a tree nursing a headache.<\/li>\n<li>Drink plenty of water or sports drinks or a little bit of both. You need to maintain the water in your body that will be lost from sweat and movements. You will be dancing your ass off and, unless you&#8217;re a marathon runner, your body is not used to this kind of physical activity for three days in a row. Over the course of three days, you&#8217;ll be dancing 36 hours straight with 12 hours breaks every 12 hours to sleep and relax by the beach. Of course, knowing some of you, you&#8217;ll be leaving UMF at midnight and going clubbing till 5AM. That&#8217;s alright, just drink water!<\/li>\n<li>Lack of water paired with high heat over a prolonged period (hours to days) will lead to heat exhaustion. Those above 40 and those with high blood pressure are at a higher risk. Just drinking fluids won&#8217;t keep you from suffering from this but, once you get a headache, upset stomach, faintness or if you notice that you&#8217;ve stopped sweating, take your body&#8217;s advice and lay down under a tree and drink a few bottles of water and cover your head with a towel. This is essential and, it may be a good idea to take 2 hours off or just call it a day. Once you&#8217;ve started getting the heat exhaustion\u00a0symptoms, you&#8217;re on a fast track for\u00a0hospitalization\u00a0unless you take precautions. I&#8217;d say, rest it off and the next day, don&#8217;t come to UMF until after the sun goes down (6:30PM). You&#8217;ll have cooler temperatures and be better rested. This is much better than ending up in the hospital or dead.<\/li>\n<li>Pack light. Don&#8217;t bring multiple changes of clothes or any outside water bottles or food. Bring your camera (only if you know how to use it) and a head band or towel for staying cool. Everything you have should fit in a fanny pack or thin sling back that goes over your shoulder. Pack light and you&#8217;ll be much happier over the course of 12 hours. Also, the more you carry, the harder it is to navigate crowds, push to the front and dance up and down without upsetting everyone around you! Bring only what you can fit in your cargo shorts is my advice to attendees.<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t do drugs. House and Trance music are said to be engineered for Acid and Ecstasy. It is a known fact that the two are designed to compliment each other. I don&#8217;t care. I&#8217;ve attended Ultra since 2005 and have been attending all-night and 24 hour+ raves since I was 18 years old and have never once taken a drug. A few of my friends are the same way. Don&#8217;t do drugs while you&#8217;re there and I can assure you that your weekend will go much better. Why pay thousands of dollars to attend a festival where you&#8217;re high the entire time?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What&#8217;s the big deal with doing drugs? Honestly, I don&#8217;t care if people do drugs. They can do drugs and dance their butts off. My problem and my only complaint for those who waste their time and money going to UMF to do X is that it ruins everyone else&#8217;s day and gets worse each year. Remember that Ultra in Miami is an all-ages event so although there aren&#8217;t many families in attendance, you will see groups of teenagers 14 and up dancing around and I&#8217;d say that 14-21 year olds make up closely half of those attending.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"Miami's Finest by adamjackson1984, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adamjackson\/4469363005\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4072\/4469363005_d156338149_z.jpg?resize=553%2C640&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Miami's Finest\" width=\"553\" height=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>My issue is that I have to keep two water bottles with me (at $5 a piece) so when the girl next to me starts going comatose, I&#8217;ll have water to give her. It&#8217;s commonly known that you need to force yourself to drink water when doing it not because the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goaskalice.columbia.edu\/1519.html\">drug\u00a0dehydrates\u00a0you<\/a> but because you&#8217;ll lose track of time and forget. The same goes for Acid, Mushrooms and Magic Truffles. Kids take drugs at Ultra and everyone knows it. They throw on body paint and skimpy clothes and get high and golf-kart Miami medics are driving passed the stages and through the crowds every half hour to take kids to the hospital who have either overdosed or gotten high and passed out from dehydration. I have helped over a dozen boys and girls to medics over the past 6 years after they pass out next to me. What I&#8217;d really appreciate is that people explore recreational drugs in their own homes with friends who know what the heck is going on enough to help them if they have problems. The most common scenario is 4 girls and a guy show up to UMF, they all get high and a few hours later, they all pass out and lose each other wasting their $250-$500 worth of value by going to the event. It&#8217;s depressing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"Miami's Finest by adamjackson1984, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adamjackson\/4469366221\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2782\/4469366221_b7150921cd_z.jpg?resize=640%2C553&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Miami's Finest\" width=\"640\" height=\"553\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So, do drugs if you want but do them responsibly and don&#8217;t ruin the show for others. If you do drugs, you have a high chance of relying on us sober people to make sure you get to a medic and you risk losing out on the money you spent to attend. There&#8217;s nothing else I can say.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>So, that&#8217;s my advice for surviving Ultra. March in Miami can pass 80 degrees\u00a0Fahrenheit\u00a0so drink your water, take breaks, don&#8217;t do drugs and pace yourselves! Have a great time and see you in 5 days!!!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As of this writing, Ultra Music Festival takes place in downtown Miami in 4 days and 18 hours.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-travel","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-vO","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3600,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/02\/16\/the-low-down-tips-tricks-and-how-to-for-ultra-music-festival-2012-in-miami\/","url_meta":{"origin":1972,"position":0},"title":"\u2605 The Low-Down, Tips, Tricks and How-To for Ultra Music Festival 2012 in Miami","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"February 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"You bought tickets to Ultra Music Festival 2012 in Miami! AWESOME! You'll be joining 150,000 people on a pilgrimage to the greatest music festival in the world and now you just need some tips on getting there and what to expect. I've written a few previous guides to Ultra. You\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/travel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Underworld @ Ultra","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5178\/5563985377_ee92c89d62_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5178\/5563985377_ee92c89d62_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5178\/5563985377_ee92c89d62_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1979,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/03\/20\/first-photos-of-ultra-music-festival-2011-13-in-downtown-miami-appear\/","url_meta":{"origin":1972,"position":1},"title":"\u2605 First Photos of Ultra Music Festival 2011 (13) in Downtown Miami Appear","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 20, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"UPDATE: I've began to post my own pictures from Ultra Music Festival to Flickr in a \"Miami 2011\" photoset. These photos are Creative Commons so you can use them but please credit me as the photographer with a link back to this site or the Flickr page. Thank you. You\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/travel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ultra Music Setup","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5097\/5543469690_6a8e2566ba_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5097\/5543469690_6a8e2566ba_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm6.static.flickr.com\/5097\/5543469690_6a8e2566ba_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1381,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/01\/18\/why-you-should-attend-ultra-music-festival-2011-in-miami\/","url_meta":{"origin":1972,"position":2},"title":"\u2605 Why You Should Attend Ultra Music Festival 2011 in Miami","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Good evening. My name is Adam and I'm usually in bed around 9:30 PM, even on weekends and I listen to a wide range of music. I've never done drugs, don't drink too much and rarely party anymore. I love house & techno music and am always on the look\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/travel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3665,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/03\/28\/photo-post-miami-florida-ultra-music-festival-14-2012\/","url_meta":{"origin":1972,"position":3},"title":"\u2605 Photo Post \u2013 Miami Florida, Ultra Music Festival 14 (2012)","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"My first Ultra Music Festival was 8 years ago in 2004. I was just out of high school and the only electronic dance artist I knew of was BT (Brian Transeau). I went and had a great time. Now, many years later, I invited Ben Hughes to go along with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Photography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Main Stage Skrillex - Ultra Music Festival 2012","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7097\/6879309658_319ba16022_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7097\/6879309658_319ba16022_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7097\/6879309658_319ba16022_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3692,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/04\/05\/ultra-2012-the-year-ultra-music-festival-reached-adulthood\/","url_meta":{"origin":1972,"position":4},"title":"\u2605 Ultra 2012: The Year Ultra Music Festival Reached Adulthood","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 5, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi UMF. Congratulations on your 14th year! You've stayed in Miami, gone from 1 day to 3 and people from all around the world come to dance and party with you. That's pretty awesome. Before this year, things were awkward. Well, it's still awkward but in a good way. Your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Thoughts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Live Stage, Bassnectar  - Ultra Music Festival 2012","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6045\/6879365812_5b07fcd31c_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6045\/6879365812_5b07fcd31c_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6045\/6879365812_5b07fcd31c_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12630,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2025\/03\/31\/photography-ultra-music-festival-2025-in-miami-fl\/","url_meta":{"origin":1972,"position":5},"title":"Photography: Ultra Music Festival 2025 in Miami, FL","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 31, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"March of 2024, was my first return to UMF in Miami since 2012. I decided to attend again in 2025 and just got home from a really amazing time in Miami with my friend Ben. I bought a ticket for next year but we\u2019ll just have to see if it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Photography&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/photography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Cove Stage @ Ultra Music Festival Miami 2025.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54419979895_0b2f4e9602_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54419979895_0b2f4e9602_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54419979895_0b2f4e9602_b.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54419979895_0b2f4e9602_b.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}