Live today. Love tomorrow. Unite forever. Tomorrowland is one of the world’s largest music festivals, if not the largest EDM music festival. Normally taking place across 2 weekends in Boom, Belgium, the 2022 edition was a bit different. Not being able to take place due to Covid in 2020 and 2021 – 2022 had 3 weekends.
Tickets normally sell out in minutes, and I have tried several time to get them to no avail. My best friend scored her tickets in a block of 10 in the Friendship Garden. This was a pack of 10 tickets in a private camping section in Dreamville. Dreamville is the camping section next to the festival.
Dreamville itself is huge, with several different camping areas including VIP, General, Glamping and Rent-A-Tent. It has a food court, gym, hair salon, tattoo parlor, merch store, grocery store – anything you could want within walking distance!
The Friendship Garden was in the middle of Dreamville, but unlike other sections of the camp, you had to scan your wristband to get in. I personally think this is the best camping option if you could get it, as there were private bathrooms & showers (free cold outdoor showers or pay for 15 min warm shower) for this section plus added security for your things.
Since I was coming from halfway across the globe, I decided to Rent-A-Tent, sleeping bag & air mattress. I was able to pre-book this and picked it up when I arrived in Dreamville. It was handy, however I had to get 3 different tents as the first 2 were broken.
The Friendship Garden was about halfway into Dreamville. If you’re staying in Dreamville you enter on one end, which is General Camping. General Camping is a free for all & a bit of a shit show. It can be really hard to get around and find your camp at night, even with the lights from the boardwalk.
The Gathering is the opening night of TML. It is only for Dreamville residents, and it is on Thursday night.
Continue walking East and then you have the Gathering Stage, Foodcourt and Friendship Garden.
Walk through a garden and you’ll find the Rent-A-Tent Section, Glamping, VIP and then the entrance to Tomorrowland.
The amount of detail at TML is insane. Everywhere you look there is something to find. This was in the garden between Rent-A-Tent & Friendship Garden!
Every morning, news boys would bring us “Tomorrowland Today,” a daily newspaper! It would recap the previous day, and tell you about special events coming up. They even had fairies come around and give you inspirational quotes & kisses!
Another thing that I pre-ordered was some meal vouchers. This saved me from waiting in line by giving me a time slot to pick up my tray.
The first stage after entering the festival is Moose Bar. This was a small German Style Beer Hall, but it was air conditioned.
Next – you enter the holy grounds of the Main Stage. This was the tallest stage in Tomorrowland’s history!
I saw Charlotte de Witte, Lost Frequencies, 3 are Legend, Nervo, Ricky Romero and Major Lazor here.
Between artist, people would come out and walk on the curved parts of the stage.
Fireworks were a huge part of the Main Stage, and they went off every night.
This was The Library Stage. It used to be the Main Stage several years back, but this weekend I saw Paris Hilton and Hot Dub Time Machine.
During Hot Dub Time Machine’s set, a TML Hot Air Balloon flew over us!
The smallest stage was the ‘Rave Cave,’ barely fitting 50 people!
Walking from stage to stage was idyllic!
One of our favorite stages was The Rose Garden. It has a huge dragon whose head moved, blew smoke and even the eyes & eyelashes blinked! I liked being under the wing for some shade.
Habour House was another small stage, it was always packed we never went in – just enjoyed the beats from the boardwalk.
This mushroom stage was call Youphoria and is where we saw Koven & Tony Romera.
Next door was the Crystal Garden. Diplo and Above & Beyond played here.
We briefly stoped at Leaf to get some shade – it was so hot and we were doing so much walking!
Same case with Kara Savi, we stopped by when heading to Dreamcatcher Waterfall & the Freedom Stage. Freedom was a large indoor stage over 2 levels, known for its insane visual effects.
The Dreamcatcher Waterfall is basically the front entrance to the Freedom Stage by Budweiser.
Another one of our favorite stages was Core. A new stage this year, attendants had to cross over a highway to enter this forest escape.
We went here 2 days across the weekend.
Last but not least was the Atmosphere stage. This was another indoor tent and a nice way to get out of the heat.
Tomorrowland was by far the best festival I had ever gone to. They use their own currency, called Pearls, and everything is cashless. You upload money to your wristband and use that to get in and out of the Festival, around Dreamville and buy food, drinks and merch at the festival.
Out of 15 stages, we made it to 13 which is a great effort! Some things I would like to see improved was better drop off and pick up for people arriving or leaving by taxi and soap outside of bathrooms. Considering this was the first festival after Covid, I was surprised not to see any soap nor hand sanitizer.
If you ever have the chance to go to Tomorrowland – go. It can be a bit more admin that your average festival, but it is so, SO, worth it!
Have you been? What was your experience?
