Playing stubborn on South Beach with pushy music flacks: A Miami dispatch.
How to survive logistical snags, spinning flacks and dangerous indulgences at the biggest week-long gathering of electronic artists in the world.
Listener’s Note: Taking a podcast *pause* this week to bring you a dispatch from my experience covering Miami Music Week. Pod resumes next week 🙂 for you loyal #TCTC listeners.
Now transport yourself to the 3-0-5…
They weren’t going to wait.
I was running just 10 minutes behind – if you believe the Uber app – which you shouldn’t.
But for Miami, and especially during Music Week, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors from more than 100 countries, the 15-minute window for tardiness felt entirely reasonable.
I would roll up outside South Beach’s Nautilus Hotel by 5:35 p.m. for a 5:30 interview, but needed time to check-in and secure credentials amid Happy Hour, which, as you can imagine, is more roisterous here than a Capitol Hill mixer.
I’d be into the lobby and interview ready by 5:40.
The P.R. flack for Norwegian DJ Alan Walker – my interview subject – felt that was “pretty late.”
The text exchange:
5:35 was OK.
5:40 was too late.
Well OK then.
When a flack plays hardball like this, you can choose to acquiesce – which I might’ve done in limited circumstances.