After festival is canceled due to coronavirus fears, Ultra is not offering refunds
After this year’s Ultra Music Festival was officially canceled Friday because of worries about the potential spread of the novel coronavirus, the electronic dance music event’s organizers promised ticket buyers there would be more information available Monday.
In the literal 11th hour late Monday, ticket holders received an email that made no mention of refunds. Instead, people who purchased tickets to this year’s Ultra will have access to either the 2021 or 2022 event in Miami — events that are, at this point, not even guaranteed under Ultra’s contract to use city-owned Bayfront Park.
Under the title “Ultra Miami Rescheduled,” organizers explained that ticket holders can use them to enter one of two future festivals, along with a list of benefits that include discount codes for merchandise and tickets.
“ALL tickets purchased will of course remain valid and will be honored at either the 2021 or 2022 Ultra Miami event, at your option,” read an email sent around midnight. “You will have 30 days to choose which Ultra Miami event you want to attend. Additionally, we are also working to offer a digital online Ultra experience as soon as possible.”
After city officials announced Friday that the three-day concert event would be postponed, festival organizers said the postponement would last a year — effectively canceling the 2020 event, which was supposed to mark the festival’s return to Bayfront Park.
In the Friday notice to fans, Ultra said ticket buyers would receive direct communications on Monday about “next steps.” Late Monday and early Tuesday, ticket holders began to receive the news.
The word “refund” does not appear in the email at all. Organizers framed the cancellation as the primary decision of Miami city administrators who were worried about the potential spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. According to the late-night message, organizers plan to offer a host of advantages to “add value” to tickets that appear to be nonrefundable. Some of the advantages for future attendees include discounted upgrades, tickets to other Ultra events around the world and half off of up to $250 in merchandise.
“Even though the situation is completely beyond our control, we are fully engaged, pushing forward to go above and beyond for you,” the notice reads. “In seeing that commitment through, we have worked around the clock to assemble an extraordinary added value package for you.”
Last week, some Ultra fans told the Miami Herald they would prefer to get their money back. Others said they wouldn’t mind if the festival would make this year’s tickets valid for the next festival.
“I also understand the Ultra is a business and they’re not out to do community service, but to argue against the case, if you pay for a “service” that’s for a specific date and time and it’s changed, the deal should be off. Simple as that,” said Luke Starner, an Ohio resident who is still coming to Miami with his wife because they are stuck with their flight and Airbnb lodgings.
Starner said the right thing for Ultra to do would be to figure out a way to fully refund people who prepaid for an event they’re not getting.
“Getting tickets for next year is all well and good — if you planned on going next year,” Starner said. “This was going to be the one and only time we went to Ultra. We’re a couple in our young 30s with great jobs and no kids ... for now ... and who knows if that could change. There’s no way we can obligate ourselves to a long weekend trip one to two years down the road. It’s just not feasible.”
Alex Wu, of Washington, D.C., told the Herald he considered the full benefits package to be almost too good to be true.
“The value pack Ultra put together is absolutely fantastic and borderline unbelievable,” Wu said, though he said some of the terms did not seem fully explained in the email.
Wu said he is a die-hard Ultra fan who sees himself coming to future events. Whether Ultra happens in Miami next year is unclear due to the nature of the festival’s agreement with the city.
Ultra has a revocable license agreement with the city to use Bayfront Park to stage the festival. That agreement can be revoked by either the city or Ultra during a 60-day period after the previous festival, as well as for other reasons, such as public safety. City officials signaled they might have used this mechanism to cancel the event if the organizers didn’t agree to call off the March 20-22 concert.
Now, it remains to be seen how the city and Ultra revisit their contractual relationship in light of this year’s cancellation. Ultimately, Miami’s five city commissioners have the power to approve or deny an agreement that would keep Ultra in Miami, and organizers have had a rocky relationship with the city’s political leaders for years.
Read the full email below:
This story was originally published March 10, 2020 at 2:00 AM.
