We made a little stop-off after Miami WMC this year at Disney World and to spend some more time in the sun, so my apologies that this is already a bit tardy and there’s already been a lot of ‘this track that track’ chat.

Our schedule was pretty busy; we arrived on Friday 16th and headed straight to Electric Pickle for the WMC launch party with Catz n Dogz, then had a couple of sun days before DJ Mag‘s Recession Sessions at the Shelbourne and Culprit vs Leftroom at Treehouse Wednesday 21 March, then Thursday Dirtybird BBQ at Villa 221, Hypercolour with Groove Armada at The Delano and the Hot Creations party Shine at the Shelbourne. Friday we headed to the beautiful Standard for lunch before the Ed Banger poolside party to honour DJ Mehdi, which was gorgeous. Saturday we were up early for Haitian food at the amazing Tap Tap restaurant before the all-dayer Get Lost at Electric Pickle, then back to Treehouse for the Get Physical party in the evening. And finally the Sunday marathon; we went back and forth between Giant Throbbing Electric Pickle at Electric Pickle and Last Resort at Villa 221, catching a bit of Soul Clap vs Wolf + Lamb‘s marathon five hour set upstairs at the Pickle then back to Villa for a Hot Creations party and a trip to the suburbs for the sunrise.

New venues worth mentioning are new South Beach spot Treehouse (lovely garden) and the beautiful Villa 221, which hosted everyone’s favourite day parties; the Dirtybird BBQ (Justin Martin‘s Mum and Dad manning the barbeque!) and Last Resort. The lunch, the cocktails and the sunset at The Standard hotel, where all the DJs seemed to be staying, was also pretty stunning – especially when soundtracked by So-Me and Surkin playing Regulate and Snoop Doggy Dog’s What’s My Name in memory of Dj Mehdi.

Standout DJs were without doubt Maceo Plex, who made it hard for anyone to follow him (even the team of Seth Troxler and Damien Lazarus at Get Lost dropping classics like Pink Floyd‘s Another Brick in the Wall) and worked the crowd up to a ridiculously sweaty mess at both Electric Pickle and Last Resort at Villa 221, Catz n Dogz who we saw four or five times and still played us fresh goodies every set (including the track of Miami for me, It’s You by The White Lamp) Solomun, who carefully walked the line between plinky-plonky hazy Miami tracks and booty-shakers, playing the beautiful Angie Stone rework Same Old Story by Frankie J Dickens and Patrick Bodhi, and Maya Jane Coles; big beats from the tiny figure, particularly at the Hypercolour party at The Delano, which made us excited about her forthcoming DJ Kicks compilation.

So here are a few of the tracks that made it special for us this year.

There were a LOT of great hip-hop breakdowns and edits to bring the tempo down for a bit. I’m trying my hardest to find some of them, watch this space!

And just a little whinge from me: shame on you to the labels/organisers/venues who took ticket bookings weeks in advance then still kept ticket-holders queueing for hours at the door, often saying venues were at capacity and it was one-in-one-out. We waited outside the Hot Creations party on Thursday for an hour and a half despite paying more for that ticket in early February than any of our others, and in the end we gave up. The guest list queue was longer than the ticket holders queue and most of them had decided to call it a night at 3am when we left. Is it wrong to assume that buying a ticket means entry to the club?