Europe’s biggest (and, some would say, weirdest) music festival, Tomorrowland, kicked off this weekend to a packed house in Boom, Belgium.
The two-weekend festival began in 2005 as a one-day event, according to Red Bull Electropedia , and has expanded every year since then. Focusing on EDM (Electronic Dance Music), the festival features such big names (in the genre) as Diplo, Hardwell, Tiesto, and headliners David Guetta and Steve Aoki, according to International Business Times .
The festival’s focus extends beyond just music. The stages, the grounds, and the decorations are works of dream-like art, and tampering them will get you ejected from the park, according to the electronic music blog Do Androids Dance . There’s even an ersatz “ love church “, complete with condoms, tissues, and a bed, for couples who can’t wait until they get home to “celebrate” the festival’s positive vibes.
The first weekend of Madness has ended… Prepare for part 2 next week! pic.twitter.com/qParSzwkdC
— Tomorrowland (@tomorrowland) July 20, 2014
In an odd bit of social media integration, Tomorrowland festival goers receive a treasure box that contains a bracelet which functions not only as the festival’s admission ticket, but also allows festival-goers to almost-instantly “friend” one another on Facebook, according to CNN social media blogger Jarett Bellini .
This year’s headliner is David Guetta, a shaggy-haired French DJ in his 40’s who, according to The Guardian , has found an audience with music lovers half his age. Currently, David is going through an expensive divorce (read about it in this Inquisitr article). Let’s hope the positive vibes he generated at Tomorrowland helped take his mind off of his personal and financial troubles.
According to DNA India , all 360,000 tickets to this year’s festival were sold out within an hour of going on sale, back in February. Fortunately, the event is being live-streamed for users who can’t make it to Belgium.
In even more good news for U.S. fans at least, an American version of Tomorrowland, called TomorrowWorld, will take place near Atlanta. The event, scheduled for September 26-28, will feature many of the big names from Tomorrowland’s lineup, including Guetta, as well as Diplo and Tiesto.
According to Tomorrowworld’s official ticket ordering page, it doesn’t appear that all tickets sold out within minutes, like their Belgian counterpart’s did. Tickets are still available, as of this post; a bare-bones admission package for the entire weekend starts at $357, going all the way up to an Ultimate V.I.P. package priced at $7,499.
A third Tomorrowland franchise is scheduled to open near Sao Paolo, Brazil in 2015, according to Music Times .
Image source: CNN
