The second annual Miami Music Festival took place November 11 to 14 as the centerpiece of “Miami Live Music Month,” the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau's effort to support emerging artists and bring business to live music venues. The four-day festival featured 350 acts on 45 stages throughout 37 venues (up from 270 acts at 27 venues in 2009). Unlike other festivals, such as South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, which is primarily rock-focused, the Miami Music Festival also features Latin, urban, jazz, Caribbean, and gospel genres from artists on a local, national, and international level.
“Miami is rediscovering its live music heritage,” said festival president Will Edwards, owner of Transit Lounge. “We’re seeing more people going out to live shows, more stages being built, and more artists coming to Miami to perform. The Miami Music Festival was created to help artists take advantage of changes in the music industry, but it’s also contributing to a change in Miami’s music scene, and that change is about the reemergence of live music."
Although in 2009 the festival took place downtown, this year the organizers expanded to restaurants and nightclubs beyond Brickell Avenue and its vicinity—to areas such as Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, Miami Beach, Wynwood, the design district, and Little Haiti. “The challenge for us last year was that downtown just didn’t have enough stages,” said festival C.E.O. Irwin Kornfeld. “We also didn’t have enough stages with great sound for live music, so we decided to make that a requirement.”
The event once again exceeded its paid attendance expectations, attracting nearly 16,000 people, plus another 2,000 who attended the free kickoff concert on Friday at the Tina Hills Pavilion in Bayfront Park. The latter was sponsored by the Miami Downtown Development Authority, and featured Spin Doctors as the headliners. La Gente Naranja, the winners of this year’s “Adopt a Band” Facebook competition, were the opening act.
Attendees were given the option of choosing between four-day festival wristbands, which were available for advance purchase on the event’s Web site for $25 (about half of what they cost on the festival's first day), and a single-day, multivenue evening wristband, priced at $15. Alternately, they could pay a single-venue entry fee of $10. Badges for the festival’s two-day industry conference held at the Hyatt Regency Miami—aimed at helping independent artists produce, distribute, and market their music—were priced at $99, with significant discounts for artists performing at the festival. The organizers decided to partner with just one hotel in 2010 and host the conference there, as opposed to having room blocks at various properties, as it did in 2009. This "traditional model" helped them achieve their room block, and then double it.
Organizers decided to move the event to November, as opposed to after Art Basel in December, when it was held last year. “We had beautiful weather, for one,” Kornfeld said. “And for college students, who either were volunteering or attending, having the event before the Thanksgiving holiday meant they weren’t contending with finals. We also had an easier time with suppliers, who were recovering, so to speak, from Art Basel last year.”
Kornfeld also said that although slightly fewer sponsors signed on this year (compared with 40 last year), those who did engage in sponsorship opportunities—which ranged from $250 to $50,000—came in at a higher level. Pollo Tropical, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co., Urban Network, and The Miami New Times were among the new sponsors this year.
