ANALYSIS:
Miami Beach-based ACT Productions (Producer), which worked with the City of Miami Beach to produce the City’s successful Centennial Celebration in March, 2017, has expressed interest in a partnership with the City to produce a similar three-day holiday concert event, currently being called the “Miami Beach Pop Festival” (Event), to be produced annually, starting in 2018. The proposed location would be the beachfront between 5th Street and 10thStreet, similar to the Centennial event area, with the inaugural dates from Friday, December 14, 2018 through Sunday, December 16, 2018.
According to the Producer, the annual Event would be a three night celebration of music, art, food and the City’s diversity, to feature top international A-list and local musical artists, plus local celebrity chefs. It would follow in the spirit of the New Orleans Jazz Festival in New Orleans, LA, or the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco, CA, and feature three stages in the event area. Anticipated attendance for the inaugural event is estimated at between 25,000 and 35,000 attendees each day. Additional activations would take place Citywide, in hotels, restaurants and other venues. The concerts would be private and ticketed events.
The requested event timelines are immediately following and overlap with the load out of the annual Scope Art Fair Special Event permit, which takes place on the beachfront from 8th Street to 10th Street and requires a period of 30 days of beachfront use in this area that is not available to the public. As a result, there may be challenges to coordinating the simultaneous loading elements of the two events. This would also further extend the period of continuous inaccessible beachfront in this area by potentially an additional week, meaning the beach would potentially be taken out of public use for 37 days, or longer.
Historically, the days and weeks post-Basel and until New Year's Eve are slow periods with little to now special event activation on Miami Beach, with the exception of two relatively small Hannukah events. Similarly, the hotels are not at capacity during this period.
Staff has advised the Producer of the timing overlap with Scope, and the Producer intends to address this issue at the NCAC meeting. Further, staff has suggested the Producer incorporate a community give-back component to the festival, in order to address the issue of the beach being taken out of public use for such an extended period.
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