And with that, Ultra Music Festival‘s 25th Anniversary is in the rearview, turning the page on the most challenging chapter in the festival’s history. Whenever a festival celebrates an anniversary, there is a lot of contemplation about how we got here, what has changed from the beginning to now, and what things might look like in the future. For Ultra Music Festival, just recounting the story of its last anniversary (2018) to 2025 could fill an entire documentary. Over that time, Ultra suffered many trials and tribulations to emerge even more potent with an updated formula that had been perfected by the time the 25th Anniversary arrived. Far from a quarter-life crisis, Ultra 2025 was about fondly remembering its past, while firmly standing in a new era with an eye to the future.
The Odyssey from the 20th Anniversary to the 25th Anniversary
20th Anniversary
It might seem odd that Ultra celebrated its 25th Anniversary in 2025 when its 20th was in 2018. That’s because Ultra Music Festival celebrates editions of the festival as opposed to years. As you may recall, there was no Ultra Music Festival in 2020 or 2021. Within that footnote are the toughest times Ultra has ever faced. Ultra Music Festival celebrated its 20th Anniversary in 2018 at what was regarded as its peak. The lineup couldn’t be beat and featured a surprise reunion of Swedish House Mafia along with some stellar stage productions, including the beloved Spider Stage. Ultra’s formula had been perfected, and there was almost nothing left to improve on.
Shortly after that, the Miami City Commission booted the festival from its Bayfront Park home, and the odyssey began. The festival had to engage in politics and lobbying to stay home, but the decision was firm.
2019
From there, Ultra was forced to reimagine itself and moved to Virginia Key. In this new vision for Ultra, Resistance was given its own space, keeping all of its stages together, which included a full takeover of the Megastructure stage. Armin van Buuren’s A State of Trance has never returned to the Megastructure.
The Arcadia Spider Stage was no more, and Ultra took a turn at designing its own new Resistance stage. Ultra debuted new environmental and sustainability programs with the community. The festival had to prepare an entirely new logistics plan that included shuttles and ferries. The festival also ditched its physical tickets for RFID wristbands.
Then the festival got sued by Rapture Music Festival, which used to take place there, but Ultra emerged victorious. The festival was polarizing, with some absolutely loving it and others yearning for a return to Bayfront. The locals in the area planned to fight Ultra, but Ultra cancelled the contract for 2020 shortly after the festival had ended. The festival was once again up in the air, but after some hard work and determination, the festival succeeded in bringing the Miami City Commission back around to approve Bayfront Park.
2020-2021
Around this time, Ultra brought on a new marketing lead, Jaime Sloan, who has since become the face of the festival. Ultra would finally return to Bayfront Park in 2020. Little did they know that things would get much worse. In early March 2020, the world was reeling from COVID and shortly before the festival was to begin, it was forced to cancel at the beginning of construction. These were the hardest times ever for Ultra as the festival fought with attendees over ticket refunds, contract cancellations, and the inability to bring in new income. The world had still not healed in 2021 either, leaving people wondering whether Ultra could weather the storm.
2022
Ultra Music Festival returned to Bayfront Park in 2022, beginning a new era for the festival. Many of the changes that began in 2019 were carried over. Ultra moved the 2nd Resistance stage to where the UMF Radio Stage had been, naming it The Cove. Armin’s ASOT was given a new home on Fridays at the LIVE Stage.
The environmental and sustainability programs continued with a focus on Bayfront Park. The festival also launched new high-quality bathrooms and art installations around the venue. The festival’s return also featured the long-awaited return of Hardwell to the music scene. Shortly after the 2022 edition, the festival inked a deal to stay at Bayfront through 2027.
2023-2024
This new era continued to be refined in 2023 and 2024, with a new awesome Cove stage debuting in 2023 and the AC restrooms being granted to the entire GA population. By 2023 the festival had gotten its mojo back, and the hard times were passing into the rearview. That year also saw Resistance Miami touch down at M2 so that Ultra could host its own afterparties each night of music week.
Ultra featured a drone show over the Biscayne Bay for the very first time in 2023 as well. Ultra 2024 was a great outing despite lacking Carl Cox and being the first time ever that the festival got rained out for a day, though fans were lucky enough to rave until 1am on Saturday night as a result. It’s a long story to tell in the leadup to the event review, but 2025 was the culmination of all of the lessons learned from 2018-2022 and a new formula with all of the pieces in place. It was truly the best of classic Ultra mixed with all of the best parts of new Ultra.
Looking Back
An anniversary always gives a festival the chance to look all the way back to its beginnings. Ultra did this in the months leading up to the festival with a weekly series of YouTube videos, each one about a certain topic or element of Ultra’s history. You can check them out below.
Ultra 2025 had a vibe of “old is new again” with so many callbacks to the Golden Era (2011-2014) but done in a refreshing way. You had Afrojack bring out David Guetta and Sia to sing Titanium for the very first time (!!). Alesso brought out Nadia Ali to sing “Pressure”, the track that started it all for him.
Of course, the biggest example of this vibe was the epic return of Skrillex to Ultra after 10 years. His set felt like the old Skrillex from 2012-2015 but with a new coat of paint. He brought out some of his vocalists from over the years as well, and debuted a brand new album which itself was very much a callback to old Skrillex.
You had Hardwell closing the mainstage again and you had Zedd play a set which featured almost entirely original mixes of all of his biggest tracks in his career. You had Axwell of Swedish House Mafia with plenty of nostalgia. And no Ultra anniversary is complete without deadmau5, who played two sets and didn’t shy away from some of his classic trolling. It was a celebration of the past that didn’t feel at all like a warmed-over greatest hits type thing. The past still very much informs the present in the dance music community, since dance music so heavily features remixing.
The New Era
Ultra is now squarely in a new era where the new formula is largely perfected. To continue the theme from above, you could call Ultra 2025 a remix of the best Ultra editions. The Ultra marketing and PR team is firing on all cylinders with media attention and interest in Ultra at a fever pitch. The classic stages feature ever better production designs, new stages have grown into their own, the attendees are thrilled with the cleaner bathrooms, and the festival has a good working relationship with the Miami City Commission. The drone shows have become so insanely intricate that they even feature the various stage designs from past years.
Of course, the lineup is stellar, featuring exciting world exclusives and every heavy hitter you can think of. It’s clearly a new era because Swedish House Mafia is not the closing set as it was during the two previous anniversaries. That’s not anything negative, but simply a reflection that it’s time for something new.
Having Martin Garrix, who first played the festival in 2014, close the entire thing in 2025 is a demonstration of how far we’ve come. This year saw Solomun play Ultra for the very first time, and it was clear that he was having a blast during both sets. The festival sold out tickets weeks in advance, and secondhand tickets were going for over $600 by the time the festival kicked off. The Resistance Miami events at M2 were packed and featured the best production of any parties during music week.
In 2025, the only criticism left is that the festival needs more space. That was pretty much the only criticism back in 2018 as well, so things are going as well as they could be.
The Music
As we celebrate the 25th Anniversary and look back on past anniversaries in 2018 and 2013, you realize just how much the EDM landscape has changed since then. Everywhere you go, you’re hearing house and techno sounds, even at ASOT or the mainstage. Armin van Buuren, Oliver Heldens, Hardwell, Alesso, Tiesto, Kaskade and more have evolved and updated their sounds to keep up. The Friday mainstage closer was exclusively house and techno, and Hardwell followed suit with his closing set on Saturday. Resistance expanded to celebrate all kinds of house and techno, including melodic techno and hard techno.
You have underground artists playing prime slots on the mainstage, such as the global debut of Anyma b2b Solomun, and suddenly anything feels possible.
That’s not to say that Ultra had any holes in its musical offerings. The festival featured pretty much every main genre in the dance music scene, even Drum & Bass and Hardstyle. The Live Stage continues to feature live acts like Pendulum, NERO, Chase & Status, KSHMR, and Gesaffelstein. We compiled all of the sets that have been posted so far, so you can check them out here!
The Venue
Bayfront Park remains one of the most beautiful festival backdrops, even with the space constraints. The views of the bay with boats and cruise ships nearby just can’t be beat! The layout has been the same now since 2022, so things feel nicely familiar. The hype was high for a big anniversary year, so things felt crowded during peak time sets. Your age-old tips and tricks for how to get a good spot at the mainstage were not going to help you anymore, especially when Dom Dolla and John Summit took the stage. The festival features air-conditioned trailer restrooms for all, easy-to-use water stations, and some top-quality local food vendors as well.
The Future
The electronic dance music landscape is ever-changing and the music festival industry is tougher than ever, but Ultra stands alone as much more than a music festival. It’s an annual check-in on the dance music zeitgeist and it sets the tone for the year in electronic dance music. Ultra stays on top because it lives on the bleeding edge of dance music and isn’t afraid to take risks with its bookings. Many music festivals are just a fun time in a parking lot or a field and nothing more. Ultra is an industry and pop culture event with the eyes of the world on it, and the festival takes this responsibility seriously. Not only that, but the artists take it seriously. All of the artists want to be there, playing or not, and all of the bigwigs from their teams want to be there as well.
Ultra continues making bold and exciting moves each year while many other festivals have resorted to rinse and repeat lineups that are more focused on the bottom line than an unparalleled lineup. Ultra’s current deal for Bayfront Park expires after 2027 and the longtime (and very disliked) head of the Bayfront Park Trust was removed in disgrace in February 2025. There will have to be a new deal negotiated before the 30th Anniversary, but we’re sure the negotiation will be much more favorable for Ultra than after its last anniversary.
We don’t know exactly what the future holds for Ultra, but you can be sure Ultra will be kicking off festival season and leading the EDM festival industry for many more anniversaries to come.