Seven super important things we learned from Ultra this year

Ultra Music Festival is over for another year. We came. We saw. We complained. We experienced deep waves of schadenfreude.

Everybody survived. Nobody got run over by a BMW on the Rickenbacker Causeway, and nobody was stuck subsisting for days on sad cheese sandwiches. Nearby residents lost some sleep; EDM fans picked up a few blisters and got back to their hotels just in time for breakfast. Let’s call it a wash.

But Ultra 2019 was not without its problems, namely getting 60,000-plus people off an island at 2 in the morning with a deficit of shuttle buses.

Miami is not terribly good at learning from its mistakes, so in the spirit of civic-mindedness we would like to share what we learned about Ultra so that next year’s festival can be better.

Miami is not good at transportation

Not now. Probably not ever.

Young people really hate walking

It was a mile and a half across the bridge on a balmy Florida night. It wasn’t the Bataan Death March, people.

Old people really like to complain about young people

According to everybody over 40, in their day they walked 20 miles and back to concerts braving hurricane-force gales and possibly dinosaurs, and they never complained. Also they never dressed weird or anything because fashion from the ‘70s and ‘80s and ‘90s was pretty amazing. Their music was better, too. Just ask them.

EDM fans did actually have fun

Please, love, unity and respect were everywhere. And even if it wasn’t the drops were sick.

It wasn’t exactly Fyre Festival 2, despite that hashtag

Also, the stage looked amazing, when it wasn’t on fire.

Key Biscayne misses the Miami Open

Roger Federer never has to stick a white bucket on his head to be a winner.

Scheduling a popular music festival on an environmentally sensitive island with one way on and off may not be the best idea

Can we please go back to downtown Miami now?

This story was originally published April 1, 2019 at 1:07 PM.