The first weekend of Tomorrowland is here! We are literally a mere few hours away before the world’s most adored and arguably greatest electronic music festival kicks off its decadal celebrations! The festival growth has been nothing short of meteoric as it has grown from having a festival audience of 10,000 to a staggering 360,000 attendees this year, besides a television audience which will cross a million! Talk about a grand celebration! Critics argue that the festival has been at the core of the dance music implosion around the world, and has been the go-to musical experience for a generation of music lovers. The festival, organized by Dutch company ID&T, has come a long way from its inception way back in 2005. But we never really know where we are, till we know where we’ve come from! So, we’d love to take a moment of your time, to cover the ten glorious years of Tomorrowland and electronic music, as we enter a new era of dance music madness!
2005
On Sunday, August 14th, 2005, the fairytale town of Boom, adorned with hills and fantastic retreats offering Mother Nature’s finest, played host to the start of something illustrious in the guise of Tomorrowland! The inaugural festival had an audience of 10,000 and a lineup that would put any other debutante music festival to shame. Push (M.I.K.E.), Armin van Buuren, Technoboy, Eddie Halliwell, Jon O’Bir, Yoji Biomehanika, Sven Vath, Erol Alkan, and Justice all made it for the start of it all! People visiting were treated to the finest music alongside plenty of Belgian beer, great food and a fantastic stage production! The festival became a resounding success and the fairytale festival had a fairytale beginning!
2006
With an increased audience of 15,000 and 8 stages to boast of, the music festival had a smashing second year as well! With Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, Fred Baker, DJ Zany, Ruthless and Marco Bailey being the most notable names on the artist lineup, the festival opened its arms to campers as they filled the camping ground with 3,000 people! A little known trivia about the 2006 edition was the surprise absence of veteran Paul Oakenfold from the festival lineup, despite his name being included on the original lineup. Turns out, he had a last minute tour with pop diva Madonna, and had to ditch the grand festival! Nonetheless, the audiences enjoyed the music, the food and the experience, and the festival only grew to greater heights!
2007
The third year saw two massive changes happen to the face of the iconic music festival. The audiences for the first time included a great number of music fans from England, Germany and The Netherlands. Word began to spread of the festival’s soaring success, and the number reached as high as 40,000 that year! The festival also moved to having two days of madness unfold, as they dedicated the weekend of July 28th and 29th for the elves to descend and take over the magic! The lineup included some of the finest artists from across Europe and the Americas, as Roger Sanchez, Paul van Dyk, Sander Kleinenberg, Steve Angello, and Markus Schulz were hosted among many more on 9 stages!
2008
Many regard the fourth edition to be the turning point of the festival. The festival continued its two day festivious spirits, and hosted close to 100 DJs that year! Audiences steadily increased to 50,000, giving them a plethora of great music to choose from. The festival had truly turned global, as it boasted the biggest artists from any electronica sub-genre and the best stage production of its time. Continuing with their fairytale theme, the stage was adorned magically, and the memory was imprinted into the minds of all the traveling fans!
2009
By its fifth edition, the festival had reached an astronomical popularity, as for the first time in the history of the festival, all tickets were sold out! As electronic music’s popularity steadily grew towards world domination, critics and music journalists flocked to the festival and were all praise for the festival. Belgium’s burgeoning nightlife came to life in broad daylight as event organizers and promoters bought their production set-ups to the festival, offering more to choose from for the attendees. The highlights of the festival included the “I Love the 9o’s” stage, where musicians such as Push, Natural Born Deejays and SASH from the dance scene were present. Music legend La Rocca performed live at the event for the first time with the special act on the main stage delivered by Electronica wizard Moby. The festival had reached a celestial orbit and needless to say did not look like it would come any lower than that.
2010
With a staggering sold-out festival audience of 90,000, Tomorrowland‘s sixth edition pretty much saw every A-listed DJ perform at the magical festival. With Belgian brothers Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike coming to the fore for the first time and their sound being noticeably heard, their collaboration with Dada Life & Tara Mcdonald, Tomorrow/Give Into The Night, became the official anthem for the festival! The anthem is to date, the biggest selling Tomorrowland anthem! The sixth edition also saw the launch of the alluring Dreamville – a camping residency for the audience members, with attractive facilities and dream-like experiences waiting to happen! The campers touched 25,000 in 2010, causing the party on the first night to go well into the next morning!
2011
The seventh edition of the prolific music festival soared to new heights as the magic unfolded into three days, and hosted the biggest and best names from the musical fraternity! With 180,000 tickets sold out, the festival had a grand seventh edition that took it to the seventh heaven and beyond, with its grand stage set up, and never heard before sound quality! So much so, that for the first time, the festival was awarded the prestigious IDMA for Best Music Event for the first time, an award it has promisingly won every year after that!
2012
The festival reached and crossed over all kinds of imaginable boundaries in its eighth edition. With nearly 400 DJs performing that year, across a staggering 15 stages, the electronic music collective were all gathered in one place at one time! Also, the festival was for the first time, streamed live to an online audience, who could see special features such as DJ interviews and behind the scenes features as well. With eight million people tuning in, and the aftermovie being viewed over a 100 million times, the festival had easily turned from musical gathering into a global phenomenon.
The audience as well included members from over 75 countries worldwide, as the festival scaled new peaks of hysteria! With audiences touching a staggering 185,000 people and a Dreamville population of 35,000, ID&T for the first time sought to give its Belgian fans an opportunity with an opportunistic pre-sale. 80,000 of the 185,000 tickets were dedicated to the Belgians which were sold out in less than a day, with an astonishing 2,000,000 people on the online waiting list! The worldwide sale ended in 43 minutes, as the other 100,000 tickets sold out! In addition to regular tickets, 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 airlines were organised to bring spectators to the festival from all over the world! Whew! Talk about the enormity of the success!
2013
The ninth and last edition saw a grand slam event come to life, with iconic festival stages, the world’s greatest DJs and a limitless paradise of music to choose from! The festival, besides Dreamville, besides the live stream, besides the hundreds of thousands of visitors, added yet another feather to its cap, as it launched its own radio station in over thirty countries! The radio channel features the explosive DJ sets, DJ interviews and fun trivia about the festival and the artists.
The festival also launched the unique ‘Global Journey Package’ in partnership with Brussels Airlines, which ensured not only 140 additional flights from 67 different cities around the world to get festival goers with 214 different nationalities to Boom, but also a unique vacation in other parts of the country with Tomorrowland visitors! The tickets for last year were sold out in a staggering 35 minutes, with the audience reaching close to 200,000 at the venue!
By 2013, Tomorrowland yearly added 70 million euro to the Belgian economy, including 19 million euro spent by foreign festival visitors on transportation and lodging. In fact, all hotels in Antwerp, Mechelen and Brussels were completely booked during the festival! Given the enormity of its success in Belgium and Europe, the festival for the first time moved to another continent in the form of TomorrowWorld at the iconic Chattahoochee Hills in Atlanta, Georgia! The inaugural festival hosted 140,000 people and was even nominated for an IDMA, only losing out to Tomorrowland!
2014 – The Fairytale Continues!
The tenth edition promises to be the biggest celebration yet, as all 360,000 tickets for Tomorrowland were sold out in less than an hour, as did the seats on over 150 Brussels Airlines, Lufthansa, Thai Airways and Air Canada flights into Brussels! Moreover, four Eurostar en two Thalys trains will also bring thousands of people to the festival, that will see, for the first time, a double weekend celebration.
With many artists already announced, the artist’s lineup is yet to be fully revealed, despite having a confirmed audience of 360,000 people! Scaling new heights and venturing into new terrain, the festival has launched revolutionary bracelets that will connect people and MTV announced that it will produce two hour-long MTV World Stage specials featuring performances from the festival, and that it will produce a documentary surrounding the 10th anniversary of Tomorrowland! Prolific composer Hans Zimmer has been called in to produce a classical hymn that will be premiered at the start of the 10th edition that will embody the mythical qualities, magical atmosphere and international character of Tomorrowland!
With so many attractions and so much excitement building up, we call can safely say that in the age of electronic music, the greatest spectacle in dance music is to unfold and take us into its grip!
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