The weekend of Saturday, Jan. 17, Miami Beach hosted the annual AT&T Playoff Playlist Live!, a free, two-night music festival organized in anticipation of the College Football Playoff National Championship game.
This year the featured artists were UM alumna XANDRA, Calvin Harris and John Summit who performed on Saturday and Álvaro Díaz, Latin Mafia and Peso Pluma who performed on Sunday.
The allotted area in Lummus park was created to accommodate around 20,000 guests. By the end of the night the crowd was estimated to be 30,000 people.
One University of Miami student who was in attendance Saturday night heard that the crowd had reached more than 200,000 people.
“The crowd was absolutely massive, and it was easy to get shoved over,” she said. “I heard that a lot of people fainted in the crowd and that several fights broke out.”
The student also noted a lack of security and event officials present at the event, and said that security check points were not effective.
“There was a security checkpoint, but it was small and everyone freely passed through,” she said. “It wasn’t functional when I was there at 7:30 pm, people just passed through.”
However, crowd related issues began long before the artists took the stage. One University of Miami junior arrived at the venue at 1 p.m. in anticipation of the large crowds. The peace of getting there early did not last long.
Despite Saturday night’s chaos, Sunday was a better experience for some. Sophomore Sebastian Loubet attended Sunday’s Latin medley after having skipped out the night before out of concern for a lack of organization.
“I didn’t go [Saturday] night because it didn’t feel well organized, especially with the whole free ticket thing plus any age range,” he said. “I would have been more comfortable spending $100 or more on a ticket with the guarantee that it’s more organized.”
While Loubet stands by his decision of not going, he was pleasantly surprised with the event’s organization. He claimed that it was better than he had expected and that is why he decided to go on Sunday.
He shared that his experience was great and did not find the venue to be overly packed compared to Saturday.
“It wasn’t too crowded, even up front, and it didn’t get packed too early,” he said.
Loubet believes that it was more relaxed due to less of a demand from the crowd in addition to more explicit security parameters on social media.
In a collaborative instagram post between CFB playoff, 2026 Miami Host Committee, Miami Beach Police Department and City of Miami Beach, new safety and entry procedures were clearly outlined. Some of the additions to Sunday’s event were additional entry lanes, “no bag” express lanes, pre-screening for early birds and an increase in security presence.
Loubet was able to take advantage of the pre-screening security efforts where he was then given a free water voucher and access to the paid concessions while waiting for the main venue area to open.