Miami Hurricane, March 25, 2013

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Ultra Music Festival (UMF) started
fifteen years ago. Before the festival came
together, though, festival organizers held
warehouse parties for electronic music.
According to Joe Risolia, who
handles new business development for
UMF, the producers wanted to do a
larger event on the beach in lieu of the
warehouse parties.
UMF first began in 1999, as a small
celebration of music. But, when nearly
10,000 people showed up during the
event’s first year, the creators of the fes-tival
felt that they had started something
huge.
“The producers were hoping for
maybe two to three thousand people,
but the first year, nearly 10,000 people
showed up,” said Joe Risolia, who has
been with UMF from the start and can
be considered one of the festival’s found-ing
fathers. “The first year I helped my
friend raise money. I’ve helped with ev-erything,
but I mostly do new business
development and sponsorships.”
Throughout the years, the festival
has hosted different bands ranging from
The Cure to Duran Duran, and has had
cameo appearances from Madonna and
Slash, Guns N’ Roses’ former lead gui-tarist.
SUGAR AND SPICE
SUGARCANES LEND A
HAND PAGE 4
BEAM ME UP
CAZZETTE SITS DOWN FOR
Q&A, TALKS FUTURE PAGE 7
TENNIS TALENT
VENEZUELAN STAR SHINES
ON COURT PAGE 11
UMF celebrates 15-year anniversary
STEPHANIE PARRA
NEWS EDITOR
MUSIC
WORK HARD, PLAY HARDER: Joshua Gonzalez, 17, dances to the music during Steve Aoki’s set on day three of Ultra Music Festival’s weekend one, which took place on March 17.
CAYLA NIMMO// PHOTO EDITOR
Festival grows to include second weekend, extensive array of performances
SEE UMF ‘13, PAGE 8
Vol. 91, Issue 42 | March 25 - March 27, 2013 THE MIAMI HURRICANE
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