Here’s Miami Beach’s new spring break marketing video — and its plan for 2026
Miami Beach officials launched a new spring break marketing video Wednesday that focuses largely on the city’s fitness-related offerings — a notable reframe after past campaigns emphasized law enforcement crackdowns and restrictions to try to drive away a hard-partying crowd.
On Thursday, the Miami Beach City Commission gave City Manager Eric Carpenter the green light to ease measures related to beach closures and strict parking limitations.
The move signaled cautious optimism that the city has achieved its goal, declared in a viral 2024 marketing campaign, of “breaking up with spring break.”
“We’re changing, we’re growing up, and I think we’re going to be in a good spot this year,” Commissioner Monica Matteo-Salinas said.
Commissioners told Carpenter they also hope to see fewer barricades lining Ocean Drive and other South Beach streets. Carpenter will have discretion to adjust measures on the fly, depending on an assessment of crowds during the peak spring break weekends in the middle of March.
“If something goes wrong, we’re here to back you up,” Commissioner Alex Fernandez told the manager during Thursday’s meeting.
This year’s ad campaign, developed by the city of Miami Beach and the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, features the tag line, “Wake up to a new March.”
Mayor Steven Meiner played the video during his State of the City address Wednesday evening at the New World Center in South Beach.
“This commission didn’t waver in ending spring break chaos,” Meiner said, describing the new video as “clever and very effective.”
The video opens with a man sporting a long beard and waking up in a hospital bed. The premise: that he has woken up from a coma and expects to return to an older version of South Beach.
A voiceover says: “This March, Miami Beach will continue its beach restrictions, DUI checkpoints and parking limitations. In other news, a man has woken up after 10 years. The first thing he wants to do with his new lease on life: party like it’s 2016.”
The ad then cuts to the man walking along Ocean Drive, wearing a tank top that reads, “Spring Break 2016,” and carrying a brown bag with alcohol inside. He’s initially disappointed to find people working out at Muscle Beach in Lummus Park, doing yoga on the sand and going for a jog.
Two police officers stop him to say he can’t drink in public, taking away his brown bag. Then he’s handed a “green juice” by a vendor before being hit in the head by a volleyball and ending up on the ground.
Four people stand over him and invite him to join their volleyball match.
The remainder of the video shows people eating at sidewalk cafes and dancing in a club, closing with the man getting a massage on the beach and saying: “I could lay here for another 10 years.”
The video ends with the new tag line and a link to a new website, BreakASweatMB.com.
The new campaign reflects a shift in tone after the city imposed draconian spring break measures in each of the past two years and rolled out its viral “Breaking up with spring break” messaging.
Those campaigns were seemingly effective; crowds in South Beach last March were much smaller than in the past, when multiple spring break periods had been sullied by shootings, stampedes and curfews.
City officials are promoting various fitness activities this March. The new website includes messaging such as, “This is our kind of hang over,” next to a photo of a man hanging upside down from gym equipment.
Multiple business owners in South Beach have pushed for the relaxing of restrictions, saying past campaigns have achieved the city’s goal of quashing spring break but hurt their bottom line.
“We have to recognize that there’s been a lot of collateral damage,” Joel Stedman, the owner of Twist nightclub, said during a committee meeting Wednesday. “It’s time for Miami Beach to reopen.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2026 at 7:34 PM.
