Ultra Music Festival has just dropped the lineup for their 2018 festival, their 20th anniversary festival, and yet some people are feeling underwhelmed by the lineup – and we are, too. Granted, there are still way more artists to come, including some exclusive and special 20th anniversary artists as Ultra so boldly states in all of their social media posts on the lineup, so we won’t critique the full lineup until that time. However, what we can do at this point is look at how similar this lineup is to last year’s…
Part of Ultra’s charm and success is its ability to book literally every act under the sun. Unfortunately, that’s also one of its biggest weaknesses. By booking everyone, you’re losing a bit of a tastemaker status and just presenting all these acts on a platter to attendees and saying, “Here you go, have at it.”
It’s certainly not a bad way to go about things, and it has worked for Ultra so far, but other festivals are embracing the tastemaker culture and benefiting as a result. 
And then we have the repeat acts: on this lineup so far, we count twenty-three acts that played just last year.
Repeat Headliners
Afrojack | Armin van Buuren | Axwell Ingrosso | Carl Cox | David Guetta
Hardwell | Jamie Jones | Joseph Capriati | Maceo Plex | Sasha & John Digweed
DJ Snake | Steve Aoki | Tiesto
Repeat Live Acts
Rabbit In The Moon
Repeat Support
Andrew Rayel | GTA | Joyryde | Nic Fanciulli | Patrick Topping
Nghtmre + Slander | Rezz | Sunnery James + Ryan Marciano | Vini Vici
There are still more acts to be announced, so this number could grow even higher (though percentage total would obviously fall as a result). How many of the same acts as a previous year would it take for you to say “No, thank you” to a festival?
