Music festivals have become a unique experience for music lovers all over the world. With thousands of people gathering in one place, enjoying music, food and fun, music festivals have become a popular way to spend time around the world. If you're a music fan looking for a place to enjoy some of the best artists in the world, these are the best music festivals you should visit.

Coachella festival

The Coachella Festival takes place every year in California and is one of the most popular music festivals in the United States. With more than 200 artists on its billboard, Coachella is a must-see event for any music lover. From indie bands to huge pop stars, Coachella has something for everyone.

Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts

The Glastonbury Festival is one of the most iconic music festivals in the world. It takes place in the UK and has been home to some of the biggest artists in music in recent years. With a wealth of venues and a variety of music genres, Glastonbury Festival is an experience not to be missed.

Lollapalooza

Lollapalooza is one of the most popular music festivals in the United States and takes place in Chicago. With a wide variety of music genres, from rock to electronic music, Lollapalooza is the perfect place to experiment with new music genres.

Tomorrowland

Tomorrowland is one of the biggest music festivals in Europe and takes place in Belgium. With a heavy emphasis on electronic music, Tomorrowland has been home to some of the world's biggest DJs. With a plethora of settings and a host of activities for attendees, Tomorrowland is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Rock in Rio

Rock in Rio is one of the largest music festivals in Latin America and takes place in Brazil. With a large number of musical genres, from rock to pop, Rock in Rio is an experience not to be missed. From big international stars to local talents, Rock in Rio has something for everyone.

Ultra Music Festival

The Ultra Music Festival takes place in Miami and is one of the largest music festivals in the United States. With a host of electronic music artists, Ultra Music Festival is the perfect place for fans of electronic music. With a plethora of stages and a host of activities for attendees, Ultra Music Festival is an experience of a lifetime.

Sziget

The Sziget is one of the biggest music festivals in Europe and it takes place in Budapest. With a large number of music genres, from electronic music to rock, the Sziget is an experience not to be missed. With a plethora of activities for attendees, the Sziget is an experience of a lifetime.

Creamfields

Creamfields is one of the biggest electronic music festivals in the world, with events in countries like the UK, Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Chile. The festival was founded in 1998 and has attracted some of the world's most famous DJs including Calvin Harris, Deadmau5 and Tiësto. In addition to music, the festival also features with attractions such as rest areas, play areas and food fairs.

Burning Man

The Burning Man is an arts and music festival held annually in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. The festival attracts thousands of people each year, who build their own art structures and participate in a variety of activities, including music, dance, theater and performance art. The festival focuses on creativity, self-sufficiency, and social interaction, and is known for its unique and magical atmosphere.

NOS Alive

NOS Alive is a music festival held annually in Lisbon, Portugal. The festival features a mix of international and local artists, and offers a wide variety of genres, including rock, pop, and electronic music. In addition to music, the festival also has a gastronomic zone and an urban art zone.

These are just some of the best music festivals in the world, each with its own identity and appeal. If you are a music lover, you cannot miss attending at least one of these festivals in your life. From electronic music to rock and pop music, these festivals offer a wide variety of genres to suit all tastes. Furthermore, most of these festivals also offer additional activities and attractions, making them a unique and unforgettable experience.

​Last year Tomorrowland, the biggest music festival in the world, was on everyone's lips. After two years of inactivity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it returned stronger than ever.

If you do not know what it is, we will tell you a little about its history. Tomorrowland had its first edition in the distant 2005, specifically on August 11 of that year, thanks to the efforts of the Belgian brothers Manu and Michiel Beers. They had the idea of holding a music festival near the municipality of Boom, in Belgium.

In its beginnings it was very far from what we see today, its settings were humble and there were no mythological and fantastic themes like today. It was not until its third edition that it began to last two days instead of just one.

Scenarios and themes

It wasn't until Tomorrowland 2009 that the tradition of the theme was born and as the editions have passed it has become a core part of the event. The themes that have involved each edition are:

By the year 2022 the festival had a total of 15 simultaneous stages:

• Mainstage
• Freedom
• Mesa Garden
• Harbour House
• Cage
• The Rave Cave
• Rose Garden
• Youphoria
• Leaf
• Kara Savi
• Atmosphere
• Core
• Crystal Garden
• The Library
• Moose Bar

Attendance

For the 2022 edition, all attendance records from previous years were broken, achieving a total of approximately 650,000 people who participated in this music festival.

Around 200 different nationalities congregate in the place, all united by music, which gives us a sample of the power it has to unite people and put aside their differences.

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How to go to Tomorrowland?

The first thing you should know is that the sale of tickets is done in stages and with different prices for each one:

• Top 20
  • Tomorrowland guarantees a ticket for you and up to 3 more friends if you are one of the first 20 in your country to complete the mandatory pre-registration.
• Global Journey
  • Buying your ticket through Global Journey is the easiest way to buy your ticket to go to Tomorrowland. Global Journey are travel packages that the festival sells from various cities around the world with the bus, train or plane ticket included and they take care of taking you to Tomorrowland.
• Belgian Sale
  • Although this sale is only for Belgian nationals, it's still an opportunity if for some reason you have a Belgian friend who also thinks of attending.
• Presale
  • At this sales stage, tickets are cheaper, but also limited. Since 2020, a faster sales system has been implemented that verifies all connected accounts 90 seconds before, penalizes those who have several tabs open in the same browser, and places you in a virtual queue.
• General sale
  • As in the pre-sale, what you must do is enter the store at least 2 minutes before to verify your account and you also have only 7 minutes to complete the purchase.

The prices vary a lot, since there are single day passes from 110 euros (around 2,300MXN) to the Full Madness pass that allows you to enter a whole weekend for an amount of up to 535 euros (around 11,200MXN), these passes do not include lodging.

The festival informs at the end of the year when the event will take place and the dates on which you can pre-register and purchase tickets, generally between the months of February to May.

Where to stay for Tomorrowland?

There are several options to stay in Boom, Belgium for the Tomorrowland festival. The festival itself has a space for all those people who want to camp near the festival, of course for an extra price at the entrance.

This space created by the organizers is called Dreamville, where up to 40,000 people stay per day and has an extension of more than 2 kilometers. You can find different accommodation options:

• Magnificent greens, festival access and camping at Dreamville
• Magnificent greens 1P Tent gives you access to the festival and they give you a tent to pitch.
• Easy Tent gives access to the festival in a more exclusive area where your tent is already set up, ready for use and on pallets.
• Dream Lodge gives access to the festival and a small cabin for two people.
• Cabin gives you access to the festival and a much larger cabin with electrical hookups and all the amenities.
• Theme Hotels, also give access to the festival and are located in the downtown area of Brussels.

If you are interested in spending less then you can find hotels or accommodation in:

• The city of Boom though is very difficult due to high demand during the festival dates.
• Near cities:
  • Antwerp, 17km away.
  • Mechelen, 14km away.
  • Brussels, 20km away.

During COVID-19

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that has plagued the world for the past few years, the Tomorrowland festival had to be cancelled, which was a huge financial hit for the organizers.

Seeking to lessen the negative impact, in 2020 and 2021 they decided to hold a virtual version of the event with DJs such as David Guetta, Martin Garrix, Steve Aoki, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Amelie Lens. In order to simulate the real atmosphere in a digital environment, they filmed new sets on 6x8x8 meter green screens, in four different locations: Sao Paulo, Sydney, Los Angeles and Boom itself. They also created the immersive virtual world called Pāpiliōnem, which users could explore from their computers.

One of the big technical challenges was translating the green screen footage into a mobile virtual world at scale, where six 4K cameras could be combined with 38 virtual cameras to get wide shots of the 280,000 virtual festival goers, all Camera and lens parameters were transmitted live to servers that recorded the data and generated a low-resolution version of the virtual world, for use by camera operators and directors. Along with the technical setup, the artist's lighting changed depending on the location of the virtual stage and the time of day during the broadcast.

Fortunately, more than 1 million viewers watched the festival virtually in 2020, which indicates that all the effort made was a success.

Aftermovie Tomorrowland

A couple of weeks after the event ends, the organization publishes a video with the most representative moments of the festival, this is known as an aftermovie. Since 2005 to date, this video has been made so that everyone can see the experience of being in Tomorrowland.

As time has passed, the production of aftermovies has improved, also serving as a publicity piece and attracting even more people to the event.

Controversies in Tomorrowland

One of the strongest controversies that took place in Tomorrowland was during the 2018 edition. The singer Bad Bunny took the stage during the presentation of the Swedish DJ Alesso to sing I like it, the song he produced with Cardi B and J Balvin. No more than a few minutes passed and the claims on social networks were noted, criticizing the singer, the DJ and the organization since they did not understand the presence of the famous reggaeton artist on stage.

This is not the first time that reggaeton has played in Tomorrowland, in 2016 the Belgians Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike put a song by Daddy Yankee in the middle of their presentation. Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike surprised those attending the festival in the city of Boom, in the north of Belgium, by presenting their version of "Gasolina".

And in 2019 Daddy Yankee played again, now with Natti Natasha with the song "Instagram", which was performed by Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike themselves, now in collaboration with David Guetta, Daddy Yankee, Afro Bros and Natti Natasha.

Also present when playing the song were the song's collaborators, David Guetta and Afro Bros.

Now you know a little more about the biggest and most spectacular music festival in the world, Tomorrowland. Would you like to go and live the experience of this event? Have you been to Tomorrowland yet?

Share your experiences in the comments.