Ultra Music confirmed for Australia

“Australia has just joined our global family!” came the announcement onstage on the second day of Ultra Music Festival in Miami on the weekend. “Give it up for our Aussie fans.”

Full details have yet to be announced – and the festival’s website has not been updated with this information – but the massive outdoor EDM event’s entry to Australia seems to be scheduled for 2018. 

The roll-out comes as the festival also announced a move into India with shows in New Delhi and Mumbai.

Ultra Music was founded in 1999 by Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes, who named it after the 1997 Depeche Mode album Ultra.

The festival’s expansion has mirrored the global EDM explosion. Over the years it has experimented with one-day, two-day and three-day formats. In 2012 it hit a record attendance of 155,000, a year later drawing 330,000 when it was stretched to two weekends.

Last year when it returned to a single weekend format, pre-sale tickets sold out in five minutes and 165,000 attended.

The Ultra brand has been globally expanding outside the US since 2007, to Ibiza.

In 2012, it staged in Buenos Aires and Korea. A year later it was in Chile and Croatia. In 2014 Ultra rolled into South Africa, Colombia, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan and Paraguay. (There were plans for Ultra Music to head for our shores the same year.) In the last two years it extended to Puerto Rico, Singapore, Bolivia and, most recently, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The weekend’s lineup in Miami included Ice Cube, Justice, Major Lazer, The Prodigy and Underworld.

The DJ superstar contingent included Above & Beyond, Afrojack, Armin van Buuren, Axwell Λ Ingrosso, Carl Cox, Dash Berlin, David Guetta, DJ Snake, Dubfire, Hardwell, Jamie Jones, Joseph Capriati, Maceo Plex, Marco Carola, Martin Garrix, Sasha & John Digweed, Steve Aoki, Tale of Us and Tiesto.