It was “not just a stage,” writes Dance Festival Tomorrowland on his website on Thursday morning. “It was a living, breathable world.” Every part of the stage “wore part of our soul”. That piece of soul, the main stage, went up in flames on Wednesday evening. ‘Orbyz’, the stage was called this edition, has been worked since 2023, by 35 people from 10 countries. “We stick to the magic that Orbyz gave us. To the dreams that it carried with it. To the team that has given everything it had,” writes Tomorrowland on Thursday.
It is still unclear whether the festival can continue. The organization hopes to be able to provide more clarity about this in the course of Thursday. In the meantime, there are already tens of thousands of visitors on their way to the Belgian Boom, or even on the spot, Friday starts the first of two festival weekends near Antwerp, where a total of 400,000 people are expected, from all over the world.
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It is one of the biggest festivals in Europe. The campsite is already open, since Thursday ten in the morning the festival -goers are welcome. The tens of thousands of people who are expected on Thursday do not yet know exactly what they are installed. In any case, they hope to see some of the most famous DJs in the world: Martin Garrix, Hardwell, Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, Dimitri Vegas and Charlotte de Witte, among others.
Mayor back from vacation
Either the festival can continue, is not entirely up to the organization of Tomorrowland: the mayor who recovered from vacation must draw a conclusion with the security services, and then the festival organization can assess whether they consider it practically feasible. “We don’t give up hope,” says Debby Wilmsen, the spokesperson for Tomorrowland on the radio. “The only thing we are sure of is the opening of Dreamville (the campsite) and the reception in Brussels”, by festival -goers from abroad.
It is also unclear that the fire arose exactly. Newspaper The latest news reported that things went wrong around the pyrotechnic installations on the stage, for the spectacular fireworks shows that characterize the festival.
That burned out stage, it wore ‘part of the soul’ of the festival, even though there are fourteen other stages. Can it continue without? Is it logistics overcoming, and could the experience remain standing without the most important center?
One thing is clear: “At least you have a huge problem,” says Eric van Eerdenburg, director of Lowlands, the Dutch pop festival where around 65,000 visitors come. In the logistics of a festival, the site of the main stage is important: for the walking routes, but also because in the Crowd Management Tens of thousands of people are taken into account at the same time in the same place. If the site is not released for visitors, it will result in a headache file.
Clean -up work
The clean -up work of the burnt stage has begun, reported The latest news Thursday morning. If Tomorrowland wants to let the head acts booked, a new stage can be built up. Large supplier of stages and accessories Stageco is about 45 minutes away. Lowlands director of Eerdenburg points out that the dance festival has a logistics advantage, compared to, for example, the pop stages that Lowlands must fill: the ‘sets’ of DJs are less complicated to build, you do not have to bring ‘twenty trucks’ to the podium and remove it again.
But even if a replacement stage succeeds, you are left with a major disadvantage, says Van Eerdenburg: Tomorrowland is that extravagant, Disney-like fairy tale mosquito nip. That cannot be restored. “
The visitors will do their best if it continues, to make it succeed. That can make a difference. Van Eerdenburg: “For example, we sometimes experience that the festival is completely shown. Then the atmosphere is good, because there is a lot of solidarity.”
There is a large organization behind the festival. The company behind Tomorrowland, Weareone.world, is run by the founders of the festival, two brothers. Tomorrowland has been around since 2005, and now covers the last two weekends of July. Brothers Manu and Michiel Beers had something in mind in 2005: electronic music, but then as a visual total experience, a fairy -tale spectacle.
Global success
The first edition covered one day, there were ten thousand visitors. The festival is now a worldwide success. From 2013, branches of the festival have been set up, three editions of TomorrowWorld have been organized in the American Atlanta with around 160,000 visitors. From 2015 there is Tomorrow Brasil. Both festivals broke out on financial problems at the executive party, SFX Entertainment. In the meantime there is also Tomorrowland Winter, for those who want to combine the fairytale festival experience with winter sports. And then there is a music label, an academy, and a radio station.
The company made 8.4 million euros in profit in 2023, on a turnover of 129 million euros. The available equity, Zo reported The company was almost 30 million euros at the end of that year.
Around 15,000 people are called in for the organization of the festival, the company writes in an annual overview of 2023. More than 1,200 Belgian suppliers are involved in the organization of the festival.