The Tomorrowland Experience: Stories and Memories from Festivalgoers

As we’ve seen time and time again, Tomorrowland continues to flabbergast fans all over the world, both newcomers and frequent attendees. As well as delivering first-class lineups and fun daily activities at the festival grounds, Tomorrowland also serves as a true memory factory.

Tomorrowland’s goal, apart from making money from tickets and their festival ground activities, is to make people happy. Simple as drinking water. It’s a common goal for every single festival, artist, and concert in the entire world. Tomorrowland lives by that goal. Since 2005, the festival created countless incredible memories that will live in the history of dance music for decades to come. We all know some of those moments in time: Avicii’s immortal Tomorrowland 2011 set, David Guetta, Afrojack, and Nicky Romero’s b2b set on the mainstage in 2013, Hardwell’s triumphant return to the festival in 2018. But what about the personal stories and warm memories of the people that actually attended the iconic festival? I have selected a couple of stories from past editions that truly prove that Tomorrowland’s slogan “Live today, love tomorrow” lives up to its name.

One particular story comes from Alicia Camacho, a then 18-year-old girl who took on Tomorrowland all by herself back in 2014. She was nervous for weeks and days before the festival, but as soon as she set foot on the festival grounds a sense of peace and excitement engulfed her. Describing the festival as “like you are part of a group of people all there to have a good time and listen to great music”, Alicia felt like she was part of a huge family. She even encountered people sliding on muddy slopes, knocking everyone around with smiles on their faces. She met people from all over the world, including her native South Africans. The point of her story is that Tomorrowland is a wonderful environment, where you can truly be safe even if you are on your own.

Another story occurred during last year’s edition. 3 Are Legend (Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Steve Aoki) performed a set on the mainstage together with some of their friends, most notably NERVO, Afrojack, and Lele Pons. The latter showed up on stage with her boyfriend and famous Latin rapper Guaynaa who then shockingly proposed to Lele in front of a packed mainstage and millions of people on the live stream. Of course, she said yes, and the couple officially tied the knot on March 4th of this year. Another example of Tomorrowland being the ambassador of love.

Tomorrowland also serves as a summit of a DJ’s touring career. One Reddit user described seeing Don Diablo’s debut mainstage performance in 2015 as an extremely emotional moment, even after seeing him live 13 times, meeting him 5 times and even having a tattoo of him.

Tomorrowland is truly a life-changing experience for many people, as shown in the stories above. It is certain that there will be many more unique stories created out there when the festival starts on Friday, July 21st.

Image Credit: Tomorrowland