Tomorrowland music festival opens with new stage after blaze
The causes of the blaze were not yet clear.
"Our teams are working day and night, with heart and soul, to turn the impossible into reality," they said in a statement. "Tomorrowland will unite, stronger than ever!"
Local television footage showed hundreds of festival-goers filing past the gates at the site in Boom, near Antwerp in the early afternoon.
Around 400,000 people are expected to attend over two weekends, with scores of DJs including David Guetta, Lost Frequencies and Charlotte de Witte scheduled to perform.
Images of the blaze circulated widely on social media, showing flames tearing apart the impressive set design depicting a frozen fairytale kingdom, with a giant ice-covered lion, castles and snow peaks.
The new main stage -- a smaller structure -- was erected in less than 48 hours.
After fire authorities and the police deemed it safe, it was due to open on Friday at 4pm (1400 GMT), two hours after the rest of the festival, which has another 15 stages.
"It's a new concept, the artists will be very close to the audience, in a more intimate way," Debby Wilmsen, a spokeswoman for the event, told reporters.
Tomorrowland was founded 20 years ago by two Flemish brothers in a country that pioneered the genre.
The festival relocates to Brazil in October, and a winter edition is held every year in the Alpe d'Huez ski resort in France.
© 2025 AFP
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
LeMonde
3 days ago
- LeMonde
At the Avignon 'Off' Festival, Taiwanese artists give voice to their island
The departure for Europe was fast approaching, and the artists' excitement was palpable. At the Taiwan Traditional Theatre Center in Taipei, cultural representatives and several European diplomats gathered on Friday, June 20, to give a warm send-off to the dozen Taiwanese performing artists preparing to represent the island at two prestigious European festivals: the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the United Kingdom, taking place from August 1 to 25, and the Avignon "Off" Festival in southeastern France, running through July 26. They also attended a special preview of the performances. In these three works presented in France, Taiwanese dance and circus performers drew inspiration from traditional forms, natural phenomena, daily observations and interpersonal relationships to stage the complexity and instability of the relationships – both human and geopolitical – that they experience. The first performance, Push and Pull, is a duet choreographed by Lai Hung-chung, founder of the contemporary dance company Hung Dance. In a choreography blending tai chi – a traditional Chinese martial art – with naturalistic contemporary ballet, two dancers, a woman and a man, dressed in simple, earth-toned outfits, confront each other in a series of movements juxtaposing softness and hardness, slowness and speed, explosivity and minimal force. This philosophy of movement is inspired by Taoism, a religion widely practiced in Taiwan. In the background, a continuous rumbling mingles with a looped piano melody shifting in tempo, while a microphone captures and re-broadcasts in real time the sounds produced by the dancers' bodies.
France 24
6 days ago
- France 24
Martin Solveig bids goodbye to DJing at retirement gig
"It's a special moment. All my life, each time I came onstage I told myself: 'Play like it's your last concert'. Just until that moment arrives," the artist told the crowd, which braved pounding rain at the Vielles Charrues festival in Carhaix, western France, to watch his final gig on Saturday, according to Le Telegramme daily. From the early 2000s, Solveig, together with fellow Gallic luminaries David Guetta and Bob Sinclar, brought the "French touch" sound to the world's dancefloors, while he also produced songs for stars including Madonna. Now aged 48, Solveig -- real name Martin Laurent Picande -- released five albums throughout his more than two-decade-long career, and played at the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris along with 23 other DJs. Jerome Trehorel, the director of the festival where Solveig announced his retirement, told AFP that "it was a surprise when he told us several weeks ago that the Vielles Charrues would be his only concert date this year, and that it would be his last". "It's an immense honour," he added.
Euronews
18-07-2025
- Euronews
Belgium's Tomorrowland festival opens after fire destroyed main stage
Belgium's Tomorrowland music festival kicked off on Friday just two days after a massive fire engulfed the main stage and threw one of Europe's biggest summer concert events into doubt. Workers laboured around the clock to clear out the debris from the elaborate backdrop that went up in flames on Wednesday evening. Shouting '"We made it!'', the festival's opening performers, Australian electronic music group Nervo, were able to take to the replacement main stage on Friday after a last-minute scramble and a slight delay. Some charred framework from the original stage were visible behind them. No one was hurt in the fire, organisers said and the cause is still being investigated. Festival crew members worked through the night to quickly erect the new, stripped down stage in time for its first performers. Tomorrowland spokesperson Debby Wilmsen said the new stage is "very intimate," and includes speakers that were also used for Metallica shows. Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world attend Tomorrowland's annual multi-day festival outside the Belgian town of Boom. Some 38,000 people were camping at the festival site on Friday, Wilmsen said. "Maybe there are some few people that say, OK, we would like to have a refund, but it's only like a very small percentage because most of them are still coming to the festival.' "It is all about unity and I think with a good vibe and a positive energy that our festival-goers give to each other and the music we offer, I think they will still have a good time," she said. '"We really tried our best." Australian fans Zak Hiscock and Brooke Antoniou — who travelled half way around the world to see the famed festival as part of a summer holiday to Europe — described hearing about the fire. "We were sitting having dinner when we actually heard the news of the stage burning down. We were very devastated and shattered, quite upset because we travelled a long way,'' Hiscock said. Ukrainian visitor Oleksandr Beshkynskyi shared their joy that the festival went ahead as planned. "It's not just about the one DJ or two DJs you're looking to see, but about all the mood and about the dream being alive," Beshkynskyi said. Tomorrowland is the world's largest electronic music festival and is expected to attract around 400,000 people over the weekend.
