The Winter Music Conference (WMC) is a week-long electronic music conference, held every March in Miami Beach, Florida, United States since 1985. It is also known as the premiere platform for electronic dance music. The conference brings together professionals such as artists, DJs, record label representatives (A&R), producers, promoters, radio and the media for seminars and panel discussions. Thousands of attendees attend the WMC each year from around the world. History and background The Winter Music Conference was founded in 1985 by Louis Possenti and Bill Kelly. Held annually in Miami Beach, Florida. the Winter Music Conference, has hosted up to an estimated 100,000 people. The first Winter Music Conference took place at the Fort Lauderdale Marriott during 19–21 February 1986. There were approximately 80 dance music industry insiders in attendance. Since its inception in 1986, the event festivities have moved down south, across Miami Beach and Downtown Miami. The event commands a major international draw with around 38 percent of attendees coming from outside the United States. The conference serves as a platform for many underground and indie artists from over 70 different countries who spend the conference at events and panels; it is also a medium used by several entrepreneurs and consumer electronic companies to present their businesses and technological developments. The WMC & The Recording Academy began in 1996 - a partnership presenting The Producers Forum, a gathering of legendary artists. In 1999, Ultra Beach Music Festival, now known as Ultra Music Festival, became an event as part of Winter Music Conference, taking place on 13 March 1999. Waxpoetics Magazine, JBL, and Stanton sponsored the first International Record Collectors Show in 2007. The WMC 2009 introduced the first annual WMC VJ Challenge at The Miami Beach Resort & Spa with celebrity hosts, judges, and VJs from various parts of the world hosted by VJ Psyberpixie and Felix Sama. This inaugural year of the competition resulted in Sergey Lobodln (Moscow, Russia), walking away with the top winner prize. Since 2008, the conference has received increasing competition from the International Music Summit taking place in Ibiza in May. In 2010, the VJ Challenge was expanded into two areas of competition; Video Mixing and Audio/Visual Mixing. The 2010 VJ Challenge winners were AeonChild (Boulder, Colorado) in the video category and Eclectic Method (London/NYC) in the Audio/Visual category. The Miami Beach Resort also received the performance of the RoboMusic Demo in