ON THE FLOOR
MAGIC CITY MASH-UP! DJ Mag preps mega party for Miami WMC
IT’Snearly Miami WMC time again (March 15 -2 4), and DJ Mag are putting some finishing touches to our annual Miami party. Always a highlight of WMC’s festivities, this year we’re cooking up something special. The Winter Music Conference (WMC) started in the mid-’80s as a gathering for dance music professionals, and has grown year on year ever since. It really exploded in the 1990s in parallel with the explosion of dance music internationally, and DJ Mag USA representatives — alongside many DJs, label heads, promoters, PRs and other industry folk — started to attend every year.
Miami became the place to sign record deals, and also to get hype going on a new tune a DJ/producer was about to release. Back around the Millennium, all the music was still presented on vinyl, and by passing a white label to a few dozen key tastemakers, a DJ or label could whip up hype for a forthcoming summer release — providing the DJs played it and liked it, of course! At WMC in the year 2000, for instance,
Spiller’s ‘Groovejet’ became THE Miami tune, and sure enough was a huge hit later in the year .
The ‘Groovejet’ track was named after the location for house legend Danny Tenaglia’s annual Miami party, considered by many at the time to be the best Miami party. As the 2000s progressed, Miami had to reinvent itself again. With the influx of Spring Break kids, the European scene’s shifted focus onto other locations, and the widespread use of the internet for dance music business made it less of a formal industry conference as such — and more about the parties.
Sure, a good degree of networking still goes on, but Miami is now less about breaking or signing records — and more about consolidating and renewing existing business relationships. It also hosts the IDMAs — International Dance Music Awards — every year, and since 1999, the Ultra Music Festival has also been held at WMC time. This year it looked like Ultra weren’t going to be able to run their event on two successive weekends after local authority objections, but happily
that licensing issue has now been resolved.
The DJ Mag Miami pool parties have taken place at the Shelborne for the past few years, and have always been highlights of the WMC. A whole raft of top DJs have played the parties — Sasha, Claude VonStroke, Dennis Ferrer, DJ Sneak, James Zabiela, Heidi, David Guetta, Dubfire, Steve Lawler, Josh Wink, Anderson Noise and many more — and there’s always a buzz around town about our celebrated events. 2013’s Miami WMC is more important than ever, given the EDM explosion that’s taken the US by storm in recent times.
This year we’re keeping details of our Miami party under wraps for the moment, but suffice to say all will be revealed in next month’s DJ Mag USA — the Miami special — and also online at
DJmag.com in the coming weeks.
djmag.com 031
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