Tomorrowland (festival)
Tomorrowland is a large-scale annual electronic dance music festival held in Boom, Antwerp, Belgium. Taking place within De Schorre provincial recreational park, it held its first edition in 2005, from an idea conceived by brothers Manu and Michiel Beers in 2004. Since then, Tomorrowland has become one of the best known music festivals in the world. It has won numerous accolades and awards, including being voted five times in a row as "best musical event of the year" at the International Dance Music Awards. It employs 80 people year-round for the organisation and 15,000 people during the event.
Tomorrowland's success has led to the creation of spin-off festivals. From 2013 to 2015, the concept was briefly exported to the United States, near Atlanta, under the name TomorrowWorld. In 2015, a festival known as Tomorrowland Brasil was started in Brazil. Since 2019, the festival has set up a winter edition, Tomorrowland Winter, in the ski resort of Alpe d'Huez, France. In 2026, Tomorrowland announced its expansion into Asia for the first time, with Tomorrowland Thailand scheduled to take place in Pattaya, Thailand, from 11 to 13 December 2026.
History
2005–2009
The first edition of the festival took place on 15 August 2005. Manu Beers, Michiel Beers and ID&T organized the festival. Performers included Push, Marino Sagaert, Armin van Buuren, Cor Fijneman, Yves Deruyter, Technoboy, Yoji Biomehanika and Coone.The second festival, on 30 July 2006, hosted Armin van Buuren, Marino Sagaert, Axwell, Marco Bailey, Fred Baker, David Guetta, Ruthless and DJ Zany. The DJ and producer Paul Oakenfold was also announced on the poster, but canceled at the last moment, as he was on tour with Madonna at the time. Emjay, the producer of "Stimulate", the anthem of 2006, performed on the main stage with The Atari Babies.
The third year, the festival lasted two days for the first time in its history, taking place on 28 and 29 July 2007.
In 2008, the festival took place on 26 and 27 July, and achieved 50,000 visitors.
For the fifth event, ID&T led to even more venues, one ski, and much more. Sun has included an "I Love the 90's" stage, where musicians such as Push, Natural Born Deejays and SASH from the dance scene were present. La Rocca performed live at the event for the first time. The special act on the main stage was Moby. Tomorrowland 2009 took place on 25 and 26 July and attracted 90,000 people. The festival saw the use of a theme for the first time: "Masker ".
2010–2014
Tomorrowland 2010 sold out days before the event, with a record attendance of 180,000 visitors over two days. Dada Life, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Tara McDonald wrote the official anthem "Tomorrow/Give Into The Night", performing the song twice on the main stage after Swedish House Mafia. The track was made by Like Mike, Dada Life and Dimitri Vegas and the vocal melody and lyrics were written and recorded by Tara McDonald. The song reached number 5 in the Belgian commercial charts and is the biggest selling anthem for Tomorrowlands to date. The festival's theme was "Zon " and was nominated for the Best Music Event by the International Dance Music Awards in 2011.Tomorrowland 2011 marked the festival's expansion to three days occurring on 22–24 July. Tomorrowland 2011 had the theme "The Tree of Life" and the anthem "The Way We See The World" by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike featuring Afrojack and Nervo. Among the artists performed in the event were David Guetta, Nervo, Swedish House Mafia, Avicii, Tiësto, Hardwell, Carl Cox, Paul van Dyk, Raven Tensnake, Laidback Luke, Brodinski, Juanma Tudon, Basto, Mike Matthews, De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig. It was voted the Best Music Event by the International Dance Music Awards for the first time in 2012.
Tomorrowland 2012 took place on 27–29 July. The line-up consisted of 400 DJs, such as Ferry Corsten, Skrillex, Avicii, Marco Bailey, Skazi, David Guetta, Nervo, Hardwell, Swedish House Mafia, Afrojack, Steve Aoki, Juanma Tudon, Carl Cox, The Bloody Beetroots, Paul van Dyk, Martin Solveig, Chuckie, Fatboy Slim, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Pendulum playing on fifteen stages each day. Tomorrowland partnered with Brussels Airlines to provide exclusive travel packages from over 15 cities around the world. Other highlights of the festival were the Cloud Rider, the highest mobile Ferris wheel in Europe, and the fact that 25 flights were organized to bring spectators to the festival from all over the world. The festival's theme was "The Book of Wisdom" and featured the anthem "Tomorrow Changed Today" by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike. The festival again won the International Dance Music Awards in 2013 for the Best Music Event. Tomorrowland 2012 also won the DJ Award for the Best International Dance Music Festival.
Tomorrowland 2013 took place on 26–28 July. Full madness passes sold out in 35 minutes, and the remainder of tickets sold out in a reported one second. Tomorrowland again offered its Global Journey packages with Brussels Airlines which had 140 additional flights from 67 different cities around the world transporting festival goers with 92 different nationalities to Boom, Belgium. The anthem for Tomorrowland 2013 was "Chattahoochee" by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike featuring Maarten Vorwerk. That year's edition with the theme "The Arising of Life" saw performances from Axwell, Armin van Buuren, Hardwell, Afrojack, David Guetta, and Sebastian Ingrosso.
To celebrate the festival's tenth anniversary, and to meet the high demand for tickets, Tomorrowland 2014 was held over two weekends; 18–20 July and 25–27 July. The line-up for both weekends was more or less the same. In April 2014, MTV announced that it would produce two hour-long MTV World Stage specials featuring performances from the festival, and that it would produce a documentary surrounding the tenth anniversary of Tomorrowland. On April 16, composer Hans Zimmer and Tomorrowland announced that they had produced a classical hymn that would premiere during the festival. Veteran DJ Dave Clark, who hosted the second largest stage, believes that "a more diverse lineup that covered a wider range of underground music" was Tomorrowland 2014's top selling point. Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike again were responsible for the Tomorrowland anthem, this year working with W & W for the song "Waves".
2015–2019
Tomorrowland 2015 took place on 24–26 July. The theme for the year was "The Secret Kingdom of Melodia". Performers included Avicii, Hardwell, David Guetta, Tiësto, Armin van Buuren, and Carl Cox. The 2016 edition of the International Dance Music Awards awarded the Tomorrowland 2015 the Best Global Festival for the fifth consecutive year, and the readers of DJ Magazine voted Tomorrowland 2015 the World's Best Festival.Tomorrowland 2016 took place on 22–24 July. The theme for the year was "The Elixir of Life". The 2016 edition of Tomorrowland saw a surprise set from Tiësto on the Thursday prior to the weekend and was sponsored by Budweiser. Other performers included Axwell Λ Ingrosso, Martin Garrix, The Chainsmokers, and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike.
Tomorrowland 2017 saw an expansion to a two weekend event for the first time since the tenth anniversary in 2014. The theme, "Amicorum Spectaculum", and dates were announced in January 2017, and was scheduled for 21–23 and 28–30 July. That year, a record number of tickets was sold; 400,000 tickets spanning the two weekends. The festival saw a massive increase in the number of performers to span the 16 stages, including festival regulars and new artists making their festival debut. Regular headliner Martin Garrix premiered his song "Pizza" as the closing song of his set. The song was originally intended to be a Tomorrowland exclusive before it was released as a single a month later. In 2017, the festival was nominated by the European Festivals Awards and the Electronic Music Awards for World's Best Festival. The festival was also visited by King Philippe and Queen Mathilde. Towards the end of August, Tomorrowland 2017 became the biggest social media music events in the world at the time, reaching over 1.2 billion views from over 200 million people. Regular headliners Armin van Buuren and David Guetta stated the following with regards to the festival's achievements:
Tomorrowland 2018 saw an attendance of 400,000 people for the second year running across the two weekends. The festival took place on 20–22 July and 27–29 July, with tickets for the two weekends selling out in an hour. Mainstage performers included Armin van Buuren, Black Coffee, David Guetta, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Alan Walker and Martin Garrix. This edition also marked the return of Hardwell, who headlined the festival three years after his previous set in 2015. The theme for the 2018 edition of the festival was "The Story of Planaxis". Tomorrowland 2018 also saw numerous Avicii tributes to commemorate the death of the Swedish DJ, which occurred three months prior to the festival. Avicii's songs "Levels" and "Wake Me Up" came second and eighth respectively in Tomorrowland 2018's most played songs. Tributes to Avicii came from Axwell Λ Ingrosso, Don Diablo, Nicky Romero, and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike. Digital Spy described the event as "the most elaborate festival on earth", with the only downside being the admission pricings.
For its fifteenth anniversary, Tomorrowland returned to "The Book of Wisdom" as its mainstage theme, previously used in 2012. The festival took place on 19–21 and 26–28 July, and saw regular performers such as The Chainsmokers, Armin van Buuren, KSHMR and David Guetta return. Non-EDM artists like Bebe Rexha and ASAP Rocky were also on the lineup, however, the latter had to cancel his appearance following his arrest in Sweden. The mainstage design featured a tribute to Avicii, to whom tributes were also paid the previous year. 200,000 copies of a limited edition fantasy novel by Sarah Maria Griffin were issued in decorative cases with hidden compartments to festival subscribers. Supergroup Swedish House Mafia were rumoured to close the event following Steve Angello's claim in the autumn of the previous year that the group would play at the festival "by any means necessary". Rumours became even stronger when the group's signature "three dots" appeared on the Tomorrowland lineup. However, the "three dots" were announced last minute to be 3 Are Legend, leading many to believe that the group pulled out last minute. Axwell and Steve Angello claimed that the group were never booked for the festival.