Since 2005, Tomorrowland has been entertaining electronic music fans from all over the world. Perhaps electronic music’s most famous dance and EDM festival, Tomorrowland takes place in Boom, Belgium every year, and hosts some of the world’s most talented electronic and dance musicians over the course of two weekends
The Tomorrowland Stage in 2005
The first edition of the festival took place in August of 2005. Performers included Push (M.I.K.E.), Erwin Tang Yew Hon, Armin van Buuren, Cor Fijneman, Yves Deruyter, Technoboy, Yoji Biomehanika and Coone.
In 2007 and 2008, the festival expanded. For the first time, the event took place over two full days, and in 2008, Tomorrowland hosted more than 50,000 visitors for the first time. In 2009, in its fifth year, the festival hosted over 90,000 people, and featured more venues and stages than ever before. The festival’s headliner that year was Moby.
In 2010, Tomorrowland sold out days before the event, with a record attendance of 120,000 visitors over two days. Dada Life, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Tara McDonald wrote the official anthem “Tomorrow/Give Into The Night” for the festival, performing the song twice on the main stage after Swedish House Mafia. The song reached number 5 in the Belgian commercial charts, and is the biggest selling anthem for Tomorrowland to date.
2011 marked the festival’s expansion to a three-day event. Tomorrowland 2011 was themed “The Tree of Life” and sported the anthem “The Way We See The World” by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike featuring Afrojack and Nervo. Tomorrowland sold out in the pre-sale, and hosted over 180,000 visitors.
In 2012, Tomorrowland’s lineup featured over 400 DJs, including Skrillex, Avicii, David Guetta, Martin Solveig, and Swedish House Mafia, among others. 185,000 people from over 75 countries around the world were in attendance, and the festival won the International Dance Music Awards in 2013 for the Best Music Event.
To celebrate the festival’s 10th anniversary in 2014, and to meet the high demand for tickets, Tomorrowland took place over two weekends for the first time. 360,000 people attended, and composer Hanz Zimmer produced a classical hymn to be featured during the event. Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike again were responsible for the Tomorrowland anthem, this year working with W & W for the song “Waves.”
In 2017, Tomorrowland made a permanent shift to a two-weekend event. A record number of guests attended (over 400,000), and The festival saw a massive increase in the number of performers to span the 16 stages, including regulars and a lot of artists making their festival debut.
In 2019, for its 15th anniversary, Tomorrowland returned to The Book of Wisdom as its mainstage theme. The mainstage also featured a tribute to the late DJ Avicii, who passed away in 2018. The event saw its regular performers like David Guetta return, and even hosted some non-EDM artists like Bebe Rexha.
In 2020, the hosts of Tomorrowland announced that the event would go digital in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event, named “Tomorrowland Around the World” took place in July, and was released as an official movie in August of this year.
