Due to the worldwide coronavirus outbreak and the world’s governmental orders that has been issued in that regard, Tomorrowland 2020 couldn’t take place like every year. But this wasn’t going to stop the producers, the artists and the fans of uniting together, even in the midst of a global crisis.
The management and production teams of Tomorrowland developed an online haven for the brand’s millions of fans, creating a virtual event like no other. Named Pāpiliōnem, the magical island organizers created for the inaugural edition of Tomorrowland Around The World doubled as a digital utopia, devoid of the constant warnings and negative updates of news related to the virus.
Tomorrowland Around The World was a spectacular two-day digital music festival experience, bringing together the planet’s biggest names in electronic dance music and the world’s best technology in 3D design, video production and special effects.
A dazzling new Tomorrowland location was created over several months, 3D artists, designers and visual effects teams created a whole new world from scratch. Somewhere that would never exist in normal days. It was a welcoming escape for everyone from all corners of the world, for one weekend only.
Festival visitors were able to navigate easily through a magical and newly created Tomorrowland location with a PC, laptop, smartphone or tablet. You didn’t need special VR goggles or any extraordinary equipment. You could easily explore the entire festival site in an interactive way together with your friends.With a packed schedule, the two-day festival weekend was filled with plenty of things to do, see and experience.
Photo Credit: Tomorrowland
As with the other editions of Tomorrowland, music and spectacular shows were central to this event. The festival featured 8 different stages: including Atmosphere, Core, Freedom Stage, joined by 3 new stages, which have been specially created and designed by the creative team and 3D artists behind the festival. The stages were incredible feats of production power and included A-list artists from all genres and a large portion of the fireworks and laser shows characteristic of Tomorrowland.
“Tomorrowland reached out to me and said they had this crazy idea to build the entire festival in virtual reality – like in a 3D world. At first, I was a bit like “let’s see”, but then they started sending me renders of how it was going to look. It was very futuristic and forward-thinking. I think Tomorrowland has always been doing that – it has always been thinking of how it can be one step ahead of any other festival.” – Martin Garrix
Tomorrowland has now released an intimate mini documentary that shows a sneak peak into how the organizers were able to pull off an out-of-this-world virtual festival, which attracted over 1 million viewers from a large list of countries. Transporting one of the world’s biggest and most illustrious dance music events to an online medium was a daunting task to say the least so the below 17-minute short film with exclusive behind the scenes footage and interviews is worth checking out.
The above documentary called: Never stop the music – The Creation of Tomorrowland 2020 features commentaries from a list of well-respected electronic music producers, including Charlotte de Witte, Tiësto, Armin van Buuren, Amelie Lens, David Guetta, Dimitri Vegas, Afrojack, Tale Of us, and Martin Garrix, among many others, who share some details their experiences during the process.
To pull off such an event, Tomorrowland teams developed four elaborate green screen studios (each of which were fitted with a state-of-the-art DJ booth) in Belgium, Brazil, Australia, and the US. Each setup had a total of 38 cameras (which included six 4K Ultra HD units) that provided an array of immersive shots resulting in what was described as “10 times more polygons and lights compared to a modern computer game.” Now that’s impressive! To top that off, more than 60 renowned dance music artists recorded their performances in those studios.
Tomorrowland Winter 2021
Due to the uncertain circumstances created by COVID-19, Tomorrowland Winter 2021 cannot take place. Organizing a festival such as Tomorrowland Winter requires a lot of preparation, both by the organisers and local partners, as well as by all the people who would be attending. Considering the current lack of prospects for the coming months, Tomorrowland has no choice but to not organize a Tomorrowland Winter edition in 2021.
There is no mention of the return of Tomorrowland Winter in 2022. Some sources claim they have information that the contract for Tomorrowland Winter at the Alpe d´Huez in France was for only 3 years and that two of those didn’t happen and so they’re not quite sure if another Tomorrowland Winter event will even happen in 2022. It’s just going to be a waiting game for eager fans to know more. Every ticket holder will be contacted by email for further instructions and details.
Tomorrowland Summer 2021
The 16th edition of Tomorrowland in Boom, Belgium will take place in the summer of 2021 and the dates will be July 16–18 and July 23–25 2021.
As a general guideline, we can already say that all tickets purchased for Tomorrowland 2020 will be transferred to Tomorrowland 2021. Every Main Buyer will be contacted by email and within the Tomorrowland Account with more specific information. Please check the Tomorrowland website for further questions and information.
Whether it was online or in person, we will triumph together and will continue to unite for the love of humanity and music. As the slogan of Tomorrowland says: Live Today, Love Tomorrow, Unite Forever,…