Tomorrowland 2013 (everything and anything)

galwayman17..

So I have been looking for information about tomorrowland 2013 so i thought i should put a thread up for it and see what people say. early days yet but so what! have many people decided yet if they're going?
And for those who havent seen the aftermovie....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWb5Qc-fBvk

It will be epic!

bodhrandude

Wondering what the craic with this festival is myself, I know there is a lot of commercial dance stuff, but wondering if theres loads of stages covering different types, say, dnb, dubstep, minimal techno, ambient techno, reggae dancehall, glitch, brain dance or is it all techno, techno and techno. Like would there be loads of left of the field stuff along with the commercial cheese like Guetta, Swedish House Mafia etc...

ghostdancer

bodhrandude wrote: »

Wondering what the craic with this festival is myself, I know there is a lot of commercial dance stuff, but wondering if theres loads of stages covering different types, say, dnb, dubstep, minimal techno, ambient techno, reggae dancehall, glitch, brain dance or is it all techno, techno and techno. Like would there be loads of left of the field stuff along with the commercial cheese like Guetta, Swedish House Mafia etc...

http://www.tomorrowland.be/en/line-up/friday
the larger stages are unsurprisingly completely awful cheese-fests for the whoomp-there-it-is crowd,
some decent stuff here and there on the smaller stages but an awful lot of ****, and not much of what you mention.

lots of better UK festivals that would have the type of stuff you're after, without the popstar DJs.

df1985

Was there this year, cant really describe it to be honest, just incredible!

All over it again for next year, have a look at the thread for this year for a lot of info, im sure a lot of questions are already answered.

bodhrandude theres lots of commercial stuff but everything was catered for really. have a look at the lineup, the clashes at it make your heap spin!

galwayman17..

read somewhere that the crowd for the festival is in and around 180,000 people.. cant imagine what that would be like!
tickets seem reasonable enough too. less than 180 beans for the 3 days. could manage that.. also dreamville was 35 euro for the 3 night stay..

anyone looked at flight costs or ferry?

thehairyone

Was at Tomorrowland this year, serious setup. Make no mistake, its extremely commercial, if you are into your electronic music and couldn't care less about the setting/fluff there are better/cheaper dance festivals out there. Im considering Nature One this year. Saying that, I would recommend it to anyone and would go again if I could afford it.

Tickets last year sold out in minutes, so i'd recommend not buying flights until you have tickets because I know a lot of people got burned this year. Tickets went on sale in April. There was a presale where only people from Belgium could buy tickets (60,000), a week later the remainder of the tickets (120,000) went on sale, open to everyone. To give you an idea of the demand for tickets, this year over 2 million people were logged on to the website when they went on sale. So you need to be on the ball. I had 3 computers open and was chatting on skype to two other lads who were doing the same (Tip: do not press the refresh button or you will be sent to the back of the queue). There were travel packages available that didnt sell out for a couple of days but these were pretty expensive. When buying the festival ticket (full madness pass - 170 euro) remember to buy a separate camping pass (dreamville - 35 euro).

We got a flight into Brussels and then a train to Mechelen and from there we got a bus to Boom, fairly straight forward.

The campsite opens on the Thursday and it fills up pretty fast, so if at all possible head for the Thursday (there is a party in the campsite that night). We arrived on the Friday and the queue was mental and very badly organised. Maybe we messed up but it was a trek to get sorted. You get your festival and camping wristbands at 2 completely different places so be prepared for a walk.

We foolishly decided to get all our booze in Boom, while we had no problem buying cans of beer (only the one Belgian brand available) the supermarket we went to (called Carrefour, near the camping entrance) was sold out of the decent spirits (vodka,whiskey) so we had to go without for the weekend. Its also closes early on a Sunday so be warned.

99.9% of the bars/shops/food places in the arena use tokens. You can buy "Boozebags" in advance, 50 euro for 35 tokens (collected at the same place you get your festival wristbands), you don't make any savings but you do get a timetable and a bag that is handy for carrying the tokens. A beer (less than a pint) was 4 tokens and a 250ml bottle of water was 2 tokens (they take the cap off when giving it to you). They search you going into the festival area but we did manage to sneak a can in each time. Be sure that you don't buy too many tokens, we left in a rush on the Monday morning and didn't come across any exchange desks, so have about 40 euro worth of tokens in my room.

The place is huge, i'd say there was a load of stages we didnt get to, so be sure to explore. People were generally friendly, loads of different nationalities there. Only had one bit of hassle when some fella (who was off his face) tried to start a fight with one of the lads for no reason, the guys wife had to drag him away but she came back and apologised. Bumped into a few Irish over there, a lot of Ozzies there too. Weather was fine aswell, not too sunny, just right for a festival.

As the night goes on, the main stage especially gets extremely packed and its quite easy to lose people, so maybe have a designated meeting place. The phone network was down for most of the weekend so our mobiles generally didnt work at the busier times. A big downside is that the music stopped at 1 in the morning on Friday and Saturday night and midnight on the Sunday. We didnt come across any Electric Picnic "rave in the woods" type after parties but back at the campsite, the Tomorrowland Radio hut blares out music in the communal area but nothing crazy.

They run free buses into Boom train station Monday morning. These were extremely badly organised, so be sure to get there early if you need to catch a flight.

It is an expensive weekend, so if you are on a budget then I'd maybe look at some of the other dance festivals around Europe. If I had the money I'd go again but as I dont I'll be looking for cheaper options. If anyone has any questions then fire away.

bodhrandude

Sounds good but I think Ill stick to the home turf, I found Life festival just outside of Mullingar at the end of May to be just about perfect, it fits all the music genres I mentioned and does not shut down at 1 am. There must be chill out areas surely for Tomorrowland where a raver can wind down. Theres loads of mad stages at life but then there is the chill out stages that help with your come down. Its a fairly small festival but I really like it. I suppose Glade festival would be a bigger version of it, and Boom festival at the same area as Tomorrowland I think offers a similar vibe too.

SteelyDanJalapeno

Just as an alternative to anyone that doesn't get tickets, have a look out for "Dour Festival" again in Belgium, not far from the airport, the advertisement is kept pretty low key, maybe the Belgium's are trying to keep this one for themselves, but for the price off it, it makes a fantastic alternative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dour_Festival

Last years line up for 4 days + camping @ 110 euro

Caladona

thehairyone wrote: »

Was at Tomorrowland this year, serious setup. Make no mistake, its extremely commercial, if you are into your electronic music and couldn't care less about the setting/fluff there are better/cheaper dance festivals out there. Im considering Nature One this year. Saying that, I would recommend it to anyone and would go again if I could afford it.

Tickets last year sold out in minutes, so i'd recommend not buying flights until you have tickets because I know a lot of people got burned this year. Tickets went on sale in April. There was a presale where only people from Belgium could buy tickets (60,000), a week later the remainder of the tickets (120,000) went on sale, open to everyone. To give you an idea of the demand for tickets, this year over 2 million people were logged on to the website when they went on sale. So you need to be on the ball. I had 3 computers open and was chatting on skype to two other lads who were doing the same (Tip: do not press the refresh button or you will be sent to the back of the queue). There were travel packages available that didnt sell out for a couple of days but these were pretty expensive. When buying the festival ticket (full madness pass - 170 euro) remember to buy a separate camping pass (dreamville - 35 euro).

We got a flight into Brussels and then a train to Mechelen and from there we got a bus to Boom, fairly straight forward.

The campsite opens on the Thursday and it fills up pretty fast, so if at all possible head for the Thursday (there is a party in the campsite that night). We arrived on the Friday and the queue was mental and very badly organised. Maybe we messed up but it was a trek to get sorted. You get your festival and camping wristbands at 2 completely different places so be prepared for a walk.

We foolishly decided to get all our booze in Boom, while we had no problem buying cans of beer (only the one Belgian brand available) the supermarket we went to (called Carrefour, near the camping entrance) was sold out of the decent spirits (vodka,whiskey) so we had to go without for the weekend. Its also closes early on a Sunday so be warned.

99.9% of the bars/shops/food places in the arena use tokens. You can buy "Boozebags" in advance, 50 euro for 35 tokens (collected at the same place you get your festival wristbands), you don't make any savings but you do get a timetable and a bag that is handy for carrying the tokens. A beer (less than a pint) was 4 tokens and a 250ml bottle of water was 2 tokens (they take the cap off when giving it to you). They search you going into the festival area but we did manage to sneak a can in each time. Be sure that you don't buy too many tokens, we left in a rush on the Monday morning and didn't come across any exchange desks, so have about 40 euro worth of tokens in my room.

The place is huge, i'd say there was a load of stages we didnt get to, so be sure to explore. People were generally friendly, loads of different nationalities there. Only had one bit of hassle when some fella (who was off his face) tried to start a fight with one of the lads for no reason, the guys wife had to drag him away but she came back and apologised. Bumped into a few Irish over there, a lot of Ozzies there too. Weather was fine aswell, not too sunny, just right for a festival.

As the night goes on, the main stage especially gets extremely packed and its quite easy to lose people, so maybe have a designated meeting place. The phone network was down for most of the weekend so our mobiles generally didnt work at the busier times. A big downside is that the music stopped at 1 in the morning on Friday and Saturday night and midnight on the Sunday. We didnt come across any Electric Picnic "rave in the woods" type after parties but back at the campsite, the Tomorrowland Radio hut blares out music in the communal area but nothing crazy.

They run free buses into Boom train station Monday morning. These were extremely badly organised, so be sure to get there early if you need to catch a flight.

It is an expensive weekend, so if you are on a budget then I'd maybe look at some of the other dance festivals around Europe. If I had the money I'd go again but as I dont I'll be looking for cheaper options. If anyone has any questions then fire away.

Thanks for info. All in all, how much did it cost? Is it all tents on dreamville or what?

sTeVeNrOcHe

thehairyone wrote: »

Was at Tomorrowland this year, serious setup. Make no mistake, its extremely commercial, if you are into your electronic music and couldn't care less about the setting/fluff there are better/cheaper dance festivals out there. Im considering Nature One this year. Saying that, I would recommend it to anyone and would go again if I could afford it.

Tickets last year sold out in minutes, so i'd recommend not buying flights until you have tickets because I know a lot of people got burned this year. Tickets went on sale in April. There was a presale where only people from Belgium could buy tickets (60,000), a week later the remainder of the tickets (120,000) went on sale, open to everyone. To give you an idea of the demand for tickets, this year over 2 million people were logged on to the website when they went on sale. So you need to be on the ball. I had 3 computers open and was chatting on skype to two other lads who were doing the same (Tip: do not press the refresh button or you will be sent to the back of the queue). There were travel packages available that didnt sell out for a couple of days but these were pretty expensive. When buying the festival ticket (full madness pass - 170 euro) remember to buy a separate camping pass (dreamville - 35 euro).

We got a flight into Brussels and then a train to Mechelen and from there we got a bus to Boom, fairly straight forward.

The campsite opens on the Thursday and it fills up pretty fast, so if at all possible head for the Thursday (there is a party in the campsite that night). We arrived on the Friday and the queue was mental and very badly organised. Maybe we messed up but it was a trek to get sorted. You get your festival and camping wristbands at 2 completely different places so be prepared for a walk.

We foolishly decided to get all our booze in Boom, while we had no problem buying cans of beer (only the one Belgian brand available) the supermarket we went to (called Carrefour, near the camping entrance) was sold out of the decent spirits (vodka,whiskey) so we had to go without for the weekend. Its also closes early on a Sunday so be warned.

99.9% of the bars/shops/food places in the arena use tokens. You can buy "Boozebags" in advance, 50 euro for 35 tokens (collected at the same place you get your festival wristbands), you don't make any savings but you do get a timetable and a bag that is handy for carrying the tokens. A beer (less than a pint) was 4 tokens and a 250ml bottle of water was 2 tokens (they take the cap off when giving it to you). They search you going into the festival area but we did manage to sneak a can in each time. Be sure that you don't buy too many tokens, we left in a rush on the Monday morning and didn't come across any exchange desks, so have about 40 euro worth of tokens in my room.

The place is huge, i'd say there was a load of stages we didnt get to, so be sure to explore. People were generally friendly, loads of different nationalities there. Only had one bit of hassle when some fella (who was off his face) tried to start a fight with one of the lads for no reason, the guys wife had to drag him away but she came back and apologised. Bumped into a few Irish over there, a lot of Ozzies there too. Weather was fine aswell, not too sunny, just right for a festival.

As the night goes on, the main stage especially gets extremely packed and its quite easy to lose people, so maybe have a designated meeting place. The phone network was down for most of the weekend so our mobiles generally didnt work at the busier times. A big downside is that the music stopped at 1 in the morning on Friday and Saturday night and midnight on the Sunday. We didnt come across any Electric Picnic "rave in the woods" type after parties but back at the campsite, the Tomorrowland Radio hut blares out music in the communal area but nothing crazy.

They run free buses into Boom train station Monday morning. These were extremely badly organised, so be sure to get there early if you need to catch a flight.

It is an expensive weekend, so if you are on a budget then I'd maybe look at some of the other dance festivals around Europe. If I had the money I'd go again but as I dont I'll be looking for cheaper options. If anyone has any questions then fire away.

I am really hoping to get there for 2013 the videos look amazing. how much did you pay over all and how much were the flights? Do you buy the tickets on ticketmaster or on another website? can you buy the tomorrowland and dreamville tickets at the same time? Lastly what was the talent like there :pac:

homeless student

gonna rob, steal or borrow to get to tomorrowland 2013, but if I dont manage to get a ticket whats the next best thing??a similar festival that isnt so hard to get tickets for.

thehairyone

Festival tickets (a full madness pass), cost about 170/180. Dreamville camping cost 30/40. You buy them from the tomorrowland website (remember this year they sold out in minutes so be on the ball). You buy both tickets at the same time, just remember to tick both boxes. We brought our own tent over but there is "posh" camping available. Flights if I remember correctly were 130. You can fly into either Brussels Airports. Then spending money is really up to yourself. Dont have an exact figure but it was certainly 400/500. Expensive weekend. Talent was savage, but remember you are up against some pretty buff continental types who enjoy walking around topless and put us pasty pot bellied irish lads to shame.

Shreddeez

thehairyone wrote: »

Festival tickets (a full madness pass), cost about 170/180. Dreamville camping cost 30/40. You buy them from the tomorrowland website (remember this year they sold out in minutes so be on the ball). You buy both tickets at the same time, just remember to tick both boxes. We brought our own tent over but there is "posh" camping available. Flights if I remember correctly were 130. You can fly into either Brussels Airports. Then spending money is really up to yourself. Dont have an exact figure but it was certainly 400/500. Expensive weekend. Talent was savage, but remember you are up against some pretty buff continental types who enjoy walking around topless and put us pasty pot bellied irish lads to shame.

Does the full madness pass give you access to certain vip areas or are you looking at a different ticket for that?

thehairyone

Full madness tickets are just the 3 days of the festival bundled together, so you get nothing extra.

shaneoreillyo

thehairyone wrote: »

Was at Tomorrowland this year, serious setup. Make no mistake, its extremely commercial, if you are into your electronic music and couldn't care less about the setting/fluff there are better/cheaper dance festivals out there. Im considering Nature One this year. Saying that, I would recommend it to anyone and would go again if I could afford it.

Tickets last year sold out in minutes, so i'd recommend not buying flights until you have tickets because I know a lot of people got burned this year. Tickets went on sale in April. There was a presale where only people from Belgium could buy tickets (60,000), a week later the remainder of the tickets (120,000) went on sale, open to everyone. To give you an idea of the demand for tickets, this year over 2 million people were logged on to the website when they went on sale. So you need to be on the ball. I had 3 computers open and was chatting on skype to two other lads who were doing the same (Tip: do not press the refresh button or you will be sent to the back of the queue). There were travel packages available that didnt sell out for a couple of days but these were pretty expensive. When buying the festival ticket (full madness pass - 170 euro) remember to buy a separate camping pass (dreamville - 35 euro).

We got a flight into Brussels and then a train to Mechelen and from there we got a bus to Boom, fairly straight forward.

The campsite opens on the Thursday and it fills up pretty fast, so if at all possible head for the Thursday (there is a party in the campsite that night). We arrived on the Friday and the queue was mental and very badly organised. Maybe we messed up but it was a trek to get sorted. You get your festival and camping wristbands at 2 completely different places so be prepared for a walk.

We foolishly decided to get all our booze in Boom, while we had no problem buying cans of beer (only the one Belgian brand available) the supermarket we went to (called Carrefour, near the camping entrance) was sold out of the decent spirits (vodka,whiskey) so we had to go without for the weekend. Its also closes early on a Sunday so be warned.

99.9% of the bars/shops/food places in the arena use tokens. You can buy "Boozebags" in advance, 50 euro for 35 tokens (collected at the same place you get your festival wristbands), you don't make any savings but you do get a timetable and a bag that is handy for carrying the tokens. A beer (less than a pint) was 4 tokens and a 250ml bottle of water was 2 tokens (they take the cap off when giving it to you). They search you going into the festival area but we did manage to sneak a can in each time. Be sure that you don't buy too many tokens, we left in a rush on the Monday morning and didn't come across any exchange desks, so have about 40 euro worth of tokens in my room.

The place is huge, i'd say there was a load of stages we didnt get to, so be sure to explore. People were generally friendly, loads of different nationalities there. Only had one bit of hassle when some fella (who was off his face) tried to start a fight with one of the lads for no reason, the guys wife had to drag him away but she came back and apologised. Bumped into a few Irish over there, a lot of Ozzies there too. Weather was fine aswell, not too sunny, just right for a festival.

As the night goes on, the main stage especially gets extremely packed and its quite easy to lose people, so maybe have a designated meeting place. The phone network was down for most of the weekend so our mobiles generally didnt work at the busier times. A big downside is that the music stopped at 1 in the morning on Friday and Saturday night and midnight on the Sunday. We didnt come across any Electric Picnic "rave in the woods" type after parties but back at the campsite, the Tomorrowland Radio hut blares out music in the communal area but nothing crazy.

They run free buses into Boom train station Monday morning. These were extremely badly organised, so be sure to get there early if you need to catch a flight.

It is an expensive weekend, so if you are on a budget then I'd maybe look at some of the other dance festivals around Europe. If I had the money I'd go again but as I dont I'll be looking for cheaper options. If anyone has any questions then fire away.

How many of ye got through and got the chance to buy tickets? Like I know only one of ye would of purchased but how many of the 3 got through. If me and 2 pals where on would chances be we would get em aswell this year or did you just get lucky

Dinuka222

Heya guys anyone going from UK? any travel advice!!

thehairyone

shaneoreillyo wrote: »

How many of ye got through and got the chance to buy tickets? Like I know only one of ye would of purchased but how many of the 3 got through. If me and 2 pals where on would chances be we would get em aswell this year or did you just get lucky

When the countdown reaches zero we went to the purchase tickets page. From there you were given an estimated waiting time. We all clicked into the page at the same time but the waiting time varied between computers from 15 minutes to 60 minutes (which were not accurate times). A couple of our computers got through to the purchase ticket page but thats not a guarantee of getting tickets. Dont hang about and buy them as quickly as possible, remember to buy the festival tickets and dreamville (camping) tickets at the same time. Dont refresh the page no matter what as that will send you to the back of the q. Dont rely on the countdown time either as that caused a bit of confusion for us (we were not sure if it was CET or GMT, this caused problems for other people aswell). be on the page at least an hour before the sale goes live. We had at least 6 computers between the 3 (i had 3 open on my end) of us and we were talking to each other over skype. was a bit of hassle but we got them in the end.

thehairyone

Dinuka222 wrote: »

Heya guys anyone going from UK? any travel advice!!

No travel advice needed rally. Get a flight to either of the brussels airports (we flew into the main one). Once you land its fairly straight forward, go to the train station (in the terminal) and ask the lads behind the counter how best to get to boom. we got a train to mechelen and then a bus to boom. train was roughly 7 euro and the bus was even cheaper. Its when youre in boom the fun begins, getting everything sorted is a trek. if at all possible try and get there early for the thursday. there are two different places where you get your festival wristband and your camping wristband and its absolute mayhem.

Dinuka222

thanks for that!! Will do!! nw for the biggest gamble the tickets

shaneoreillyo

thehairyone wrote: »

When the countdown reaches zero we went to the purchase tickets page. From there you were given an estimated waiting time. We all clicked into the page at the same time but the waiting time varied between computers from 15 minutes to 60 minutes (which were not accurate times). A couple of our computers got through to the purchase ticket page but thats not a guarantee of getting tickets. Dont hang about and buy them as quickly as possible, remember to buy the festival tickets and dreamville (camping) tickets at the same time. Dont refresh the page no matter what as that will send you to the back of the q. Dont rely on the countdown time either as that caused a bit of confusion for us (we were not sure if it was CET or GMT, this caused problems for other people aswell). be on the page at least an hour before the sale goes live. We had at least 6 computers between the 3 (i had 3 open on my end) of us and we were talking to each other over skype. was a bit of hassle but we got them in the end.

Sound for the advice man one other q 2 of us are guaranteed going but there is a 3rd person more than likely going. What happens if he pulls out can we see on his ticket or what's the Craic with that?

thehairyone

shaneoreillyo wrote: »

Sound for the advice man one other q 2 of us are guaranteed going but there is a 3rd person more than likely going. What happens if he pulls out can we see on his ticket or what's the Craic with that?

The way it worked last year was that the name of the purchaser was on the tickets. So we had a number of tickets with my name on each of them. When you were collecting the wrist bands from the gate, they were meant to ask for ID of the person named on the ticket (which they didn't do). In the case where you sold on your tickets to someone else, a photocopy of the ID of the person whos name was on the tickets was supposed to be enough. Again, never heard any one caught out with this. Unless they have a different system this year, selling on a ticket should be grand. If you were so inclined, going by the prices tickets were selling last year you could make a tidy profit on any unwanted tickets.

thehairyone

Tickets on sale in less than a month (earlier than last year). Looks like you have to register in advance:

Ticket info here:

http://www.tomorrowland.be/en/tickets

full madness pass: 198.50

Camping pass (dreamville): 47.50

Prices up on last year, above does not include admin fees etc.

audman

Can anyone tell me how strict they are with regards the age policy? Do they check? What form of ID is needed? etc... One of the lads will be 17 at the time of this years festival and not turning 18 'til January 2014.

MikeyGorse

audman wrote: »

Can anyone tell me how strict they are with regards the age policy? Do they check? What form of ID is needed? etc... One of the lads will be 17 at the time of this years festival and not turning 18 'til January 2014.

Unless he looks about 12 he'll be grand!

lukiej

Iv moved to England since september for a postgrad, looking to get tickets when they go on sale next month. booked the flights last year and couldnt get a ticket, so i got dawged! was looking at the Global Journey (Travel Packages), theres one for 650eur, gets me a return train from london, plus weekend pass plus dreamville with a tent given to me. anyone have any experience with these packages or know anyone that did? are they as quick to sell as normal tickets? would i have a better chance getting one than a normal ticket? it works out a good bit more expensive i think. 325 would cover the the festival pass plus dreamville with a tent given to you. its an extra 325 then for a train return if its broken down?

open to yer thoughts!

Prodigious

All I can say is its gonna be unbelievable! Hoping to head over with a few lads, american cousin is coming over too. The videos are insane, hope it lives up to it !

MikeyGorse

It's even better than the videos,trust me!

Prodigious

Nice one How much were flights roughly?

RICHIE26188

Videos look brillaint, one festival on the list im yet to go to that I fully intend to....just not this year sadly :-(

MikeyGorse

Methememb wrote: »

Nice one How much were flights roughly?

150ish

Don't worry about flights till you sort a ticket first,rookie mistake!

audman

MikeyGorse wrote: »

150ish

Don't worry about flights till you sort a ticket first,rookie mistake!

Just to ask someone who has been; Are they strict on ID? Have a lad in our group born in Jan 1996.