Ultra Europe promoters file lawsuit against Ultra Music Festival Miami organizers

Following the success of Ultra’s flagship festival in Miami last March, the worldwide brand is now preparing for the 5^th anniversary of Ultra Europe in Croatia. Despite falling under the Ultra name, the respective promoters of the European festival and the Florida-based event are currently in a legal battle after several complaints from both sides.

Adria MM Productions, the company in charge of Ultra Europe, filed the lawsuit on April 28, accusing Worldwide Entertainment Group Inc., the organizers for Ultra Miami, of making incredibly high demands and blocking them on social media even though they never owned the Ultra trademark in Croatia. According to the lawyers representing Adria MM Productions,

“Ultra repeatedly threatened to cancel the event when [we] did not acquiesce to Ultra’s increasingly burdensome demands. Reluctant to disappoint thousands of electronic music fans attending the yearly event, [we] strove to meet each and every demand by Ultra, even when such demands were unreasonable”.

Firing back to the European promoters, Worldwide Entertainment Group Inc. sent out a counter-complaint saying they violated a contract and organized events without their approval. The incorporation’s attorneys wrote,

“AMM breached the License Agreement by… failing to pay [us] the fees required by the License Agreement… improperly obtaining, advancing to itself, and utilizing approximately €1.4 million from the sale of tickets to the 2017 event”.

The organizers of Ultra Europe, who are under a five-year licensing deal with their Miami partners, also claimed that the Ultra Miami promoters had outrageous demands such as “exclusive approval of vendors, prohibitively expensive staffing arrangements, luxury travel arrangements, and additional promotional fees”. They also stated that Ultra never had trademark rights in Europe or in Croatia.

On the other hand, the Miami promoters denied all of the Croatian company’s claims, and mentioned that they broke their contract after organizing competing events including Croatia Music Week Zagreb and Croatia Winter Music Festival.

Despite this legal battle, Ultra Europe in Split, Croatia is still set to take place on July 14-16.

Source: Miami New Times