Tomorrowland is a festival dream Paradise!!
Just wow, what an amazing past 4 days Tomorrowland was. It truly is a magical place. De Schorre is an amazing venue, the scenery, nature, and lakes enhance the experience even further. The sheer scale of this festival has to be seen to be believed – 16 stages covering most electronic music genres with 400k attendees and flags representing every corner of the world!!
Supremely well organized, probably the stand out attribute of this festival for mine, I’ve been to so many festivals around the world and it amazes me that a festival of this size managed extremely well the:
- Production and Sound – mainstage pretty much close to perfection, its loud thumping basslines that reverberate through your body but not pitched to destroy your eardrums! All stages were top class form the Hardstyle focused Q-Dance, even to the Budweiser makeshift last-minute outdoor arena for Prydz and Armin’s A State of Trance (ASOT) stage.
- Food and Beverages – the abundance of food choices like the international representation of attendees, covers every corner of the world. Every stage had its own designated bar and almost every stage had its own designated food stands and food court – amazing!
- Toilet Facilities – not overly packed and quite clean. Like the food and beverage, almost every stage had their own designated toilets, such a major plus.
- Foot traffic flow – it was mostly always manageable which is very impressive with those crowd numbers.
- Crowd – extremely friendly, extremely diverse, people from all walks of life, little issues (at least from my experience), beautiful women what more could you want!
- Shuttle Buses (Dreamville) – to the festival and getting out of the festival to Brussels airport was very easy and straight forward.
It was great to party with some familiar and new Aussie faces as well as with those all over the world, especially the beautiful Belgian people <3
The Gathering
Walking into Dreamville for the first time, I didn’t know what to expect. Our group selected the Easy Tents area and this was effectively Day 1 for the festival for us. The check-in process was smooth and we even had Tomorrowland staff guide us straight to our designated tents. This was no time for chilling though, so once we dropped off our bags, off we went to explore the rest of Dreamville and all the magic it had to offer.
Dreamville is another world on its own. Tens of thousands of campers, thousands of tents, its own entertainment areas including its own mainstage. The stars and special guests of the night were non-other than W&W playing to a packed Gathering until around 1 am. An awesome night 1 completed.
Easy Tents Camping was great (apart from the extreme change in weather conditions) had the following highlights which similar to the festival itself with:
- The abundance of food and beverage choices
- Non-stop partying by neighbors – I know this could be a minus for some
- Clean toilets
- Warm private showers (or just shower outside in the open with the outdoor showers with 30 other people no worries haha)
- Many chills out areas
- Excellent customer service from the many Tomorrowland team members represented across the grounds
Day 1 – all about Armin and co.
After a great “warm-up” at The Gathering, the real fun begins. We were in the prime camping spot at Easy Tents, with the Dreamville entrance to the festival a mere minutes away right where the mainstage is. The thrill of the journey to the first day of a festival never gets old for me. It’s a thrill that I have not been able to shake or get over at all, which is why I’m here another overseas festival. You can really feel the buzz and excitement, no matter where you look there is another different flag – the best part of these festivals, sharing a common bond with strangers about our love for the music.
As I walked in passed the security and gates, the immediate lure of the mainstage cannot be denied. I could hear the perfect techno thumping beats of the beautiful Belgian superstar Charlotte De Witte electrify the arena. Alas, on day 1 it was all about the mainstage. Apart from getting food, drinks, and the occasional toilet stop, our group did not leave that stage parking ourselves in a nice section of the famous Tomorrowland Hill directly staring at the mammoth mainstage right in-front of us.
Charlotte was followed up by killer sets by Nicky Romero and Alesso bringing the hill (house down) with the usual commercial tunes getting excitement levels primed for the ultimate star of any show – none other than Mr. Armin van Buuren. Armin never ceases to amaze me, I’ve seen him countless times but set after set festival after the festival he is always guaranteed to deliver the goods. The Chainsmokers and The 15 Year spectacle Closed Day 1 out to perfection – with the supreme Tomorrowland mainstage production and fireworks to match.
Whilst I did not get a chance to check them out, other superstars DJ’s that played on Day 1. Day 1 done and dusted!
Day 2 – the rain gods take overmatched by the Pharaoh gods of Future Sound of Egypt
As a trance lover, I simply could not miss any of Day 2 with Future Sound of Egypt headlining the bill with a cool UV progressive set kicking off the day from the main man Aly & Fila. Day 2 was the day of the rain gods with non-stop rain all throughout the day. However, this did not dampen any enthusiasm with the hundreds of thousands of attendees covering up and ponchos and rain jackets the only suitable attire of choice for the day. My main highlights were the best uplifting sets from Roger Shah, Ferry Corsten, Aly & Fila, and Ferry Tayle B2B Dan Stone and the bubble themed stage to match very fitting with the rain and carefree nature of the trance fans at that stage all day!
Day 2 was also about exploring every possible stage for me. From the indoor psy stages with Ace Ventura and Astrix, to the techno tent, to the Q Dance Hardstyle arena with Brennan Heart and Atmozfears, to the wonderful scenery and stages next to the lakes, Tomorrowland has it all. I’ll be here forever if I wrote about every stage but one highlight I’d like to point out was perhaps my best surprise of the entire festival weekend. With the rain annoyingly tumbling down, I found the dragon-themed stage right at the other end of the festival near the Budweiser arena – called the Bonzai Rose Garden. The crowd here was unbelievable with many friendly locals lapping it up to a newly discovered Dj Jan (only for me – the locals did their best to educate me and make sure I knew he was a local great DJ). Playing all the old school hard trance and hard nrg classics – I stomped like there was tomorrow for a couple of hours on this stage. Hearing classics from Tiesto like Flight 643 and Cosmic Gate Exploration of Space and The Drums and timeless other classics – this was absolute heaven! Day made!
As previously noted, the scale of this festival has to be seen to be believed. What an amazing venue. Other superstar DJ’s that played on Day 2 include Solomun, David Guetta, DJ SNAKE, Salvatore Ganacci & more.
Day 3 – All about ASOT and Armin and a nice tribute to Avicii
While Day 1 I was parked on mainstage and Day 2 I explored everything Tomorrowland had to offer and then some, Day 3 2019 will forever go down as my fave ever day in Tomorrowland. This was all about Armin and A State of Trance – which was live broadcasted to millions around the world. Headlined by our fave trance superstars Ruben De Ronde, Andrew Rayel, Cosmic Gate, NWYR Gareth Emery, Markus Schulz and the head honcho Armin himself. Smashing all the best floor stompers you can think of old and new, this day also had the Aussies out in force for our fave DJ MaRLo. Definitely the stage that lifted everyone higher!! Again I can go on and on about how great this stage was but alas I’ll leave that for another day. Thank you ASOT and Thank You Armin – who shortly announced after his 2-hour set that he was going to play a special 15 year set on the mainstage.
After Armin’s announcement, I raced to the mainstage to catch his best of 15 Years set. Yet another masterpiece with the best trance and cool dance anthems from the yesteryear. The event closed off with 3 Are Legend (Steve Aoki and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike) who provided a very heartwarming and touching tribute to the late Avicii. Very emotional coupled with the most iconic electronic music anthems you can think off. A perfect way to top off Tomorrowland.
Other superstar DJ’s that played on Day 3 include NERVO, Ramon Tapia, Ida Engberg to name a few.
Wrapping this up, the most overplayed song at the festival had to be Meduza – Piece of Your Heart. From the shuttle buses on the way to The Gathering to hearing it at almost every stage in Tomorrowland with about 15 different genre mixes, it truly is the standout EDM track this year. The standout performer? Always Armin – playing 2 mainstage sets and a 2 hour ASOT set, the guy is an absolute unstoppable machine!
All in all a solid 9/10. It is definitely in my top 5 overseas music events of all time and I hope to be back again one day soon. An extremely well run A-Class professional event. Well done to the Tomorrowland team, you truly are one of the best in the world!
Live Today, Love Tomorrow, Unite Forever!
Thank you Hanz van Rayos for this amazing review!
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