He began his career within Miami's club and electronic music scenes as a bouncer at the Cameo nightclub in Miami Beach during the 1990s.[3] He then became a publisher of an electronic and dance music magazine called D'VOX, which focused on Miami's emerging electronic dance music industry during the 1990s.[3] Omes acquired professional contacts within the city's music and DJ culture while working at D'VOX and the nightclubs.[3]
One of Omes's contacts within the music industry was Russell Faibisch, with whom he conceived the idea for a beachfront music festival that would become Ultra.[3] The two met at an event. In a 2013 interview with Miami New Times, Faibisch recalled, "I was doing an event and had to place some ads...That's when I met Alex Omes, who had the vision. We started Ultra together."[3] Omes and Faibisch, who had similar interests in club music, soon became close friends and, later, business partners.[3] Together, they brainstormed the idea for a beachfront music festival to be held alongside the annual Winter Music Conference (WMC).[3] Thousands of attendees and electronic music fans had attended WMC annually since its creation in 1985.[3] The two business partners saw potential for a dance music event during the same week as WMC.[3]
Faibisch and Omes organized the first Ultra Music Festival on March 13, 1999, in Collins Park in Miami Beach's South Beach neighborhood.[3] Artists performing at the first Ultra's main stage included Paul van Dyk, DJ Baby Anne and Josh Wink.[3] The 1999 Ultra festival proved popular, with 10,000 concertgoers in attendance, though Omes and Faibisch still saw a financial loss of between $10,000 and $20,000 on the project during its first year.[3]
Ultra Music Festival was held as a one-day event from 1999 until 2006. It was expanded into a two-day festival from 2007 to 2010, eventually reaching across two consecutive weekends in 2013. Ultra Music Festival reverted to a three-day concert in 2014. The event has featured some of the world's top electronic and dance DJs and artists, including Avicii, DJ Eddie G Miami, Deadmau5, Tiësto, Paul van Dyk, and Madonna.[2]
Omes was pushed out of Ultra on August 10, 2010 after Ultra Music Festival officials ended its decade-long association with the Winter Music Conference.[1][3] Omes charged that he had been forced out of Ultra following a "secret shareholders' meeting" in a lawsuit filed in 2012.[3][4]
Alex Omes soon partnered with another Miami nightlife promoter, Emi Guerra. Together, Omes and Guerra co-founded Go Big Productions, an event company, to stage concerts and other major events in Miami.[2] In 2011 and 2012, Go Big Productions held concerts featuring Swedish House Mafia on the same weekends as the Ultra Music Festival.[1][2] Go Big also planned a new two-day, multistage concert, called the UR1 music festival, which was scheduled to be held in downtown Miami in 2012, coinciding with Art Basel.[2] However, UR1, which would have featured Kanye West and Lou Reed as headliners, was cancelled due to lower than expected ticket sales.[1][2]