Where to stay at Tomorrowland?
We’ll talk about tickets and prices in a moment, but trust me, you’ll want to hear about accommodation first. There are two main options: staying in the camping area called Dreamville, or staying elsewhere, such as in an Airbnb, hotel, etc., in Boom, Antwerp, or another city in Belgium.
My experience in 2023 was in Dreamville, and the two main reasons I would recommend it are:
1. The full experience, for sure! There’s no better way to truly experience Tomorrowland than by staying in Dreamville.
2. Walking distance to the festival. Imagine the festival ending and having to walk to the train station (which isn’t a short walk), then taking a train, and so on. It’s quite a hassle, honestly. Also, accommodation in Boom is quite expensive unless you’re incredibly lucky to find something affordable.
Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty. Let’s delve into the different types of accommodations in Dreamville, along with their advantages and disadvantages.
Ticket types in Dreamville
Every ticket type that includes Dreamville also includes a 3-day ticket to the festival itself. Now, let’s talk about the specific details for Dreamville options:
- Magnificent Greens Package – This is the most basic package. It provides you with a spot somewhere in the camping area, and you’re responsible for bringing your own tent and everything else.
- Camp2Camp – This is an environmentally friendly way to stay in Dreamville that includes the necessary gear.
- Easy tent – This is the option where you arrive in Dreamville, and the tent and everything are already set up for you. You receive a mattress, sleeping bags, a locker for the tent, and you can take everything with you once the festival ends. The best part? The Easy tent area is a dedicated section accessible only to people with the Easy tent package. All other areas are open to everyone with a Dreamville package. There’s also a premium version of the Easy tent that includes power outlets (no worries about power banks) and chairs for you to use.
- Friendship Garden – A package for 10 people that guarantees a group of 10 can stay together.
- Mansion, Ensuite, Cabanas, etc. – These are fancier and more expensive options, which I didn’t explore due to budget constraints.
It also depends on the available tickets when you try to make a purchase, as they sell out incredibly fast. However, I strongly recommend the Easy tent option. We didn’t choose the premium version, but you can also buy the chairs separately, and I’ll tell you more about a cool power bank program that Tomorrowland offers. Another thing to note is that the Easy tent area is a bit closer to the festival entrance, whereas the other camping area is closer to Dreamville facilities like the market, gym (yes, there’s a gym!), and more food options.
Advantages and Disadvantages
As with everything in life, there are pros and cons to consider, and Dreamville is no exception. Let’s start with the disadvantages, which are relatively few compared to the numerous advantages I found in choosing Dreamville for this experience.
Disadvantages
- Tent Accommodation: If you prefer a comfortable style of travel, staying in a tent might be a bit outside your comfort zone. Getting ready, ironing clothes, doing makeup, and other related activities are a bit more complicated when camping. However, the experience is worth it.
- Shared Toilets: Sharing toilets and washing your teeth with hundreds of other people can be a bit overwhelming, although the toilets are kept very clean.
- Showers: Private showers are not free (around €4 per shower), but they come with a hair dryer. Public showers are also available, where 7-8 people shower simultaneously in swimsuits. It’s part of the experience.
- Device Charging: Charging your devices can be a bit tricky unless your accommodation option includes power outlets. However, power banks are reliable alternatives.
- Weather: Even though it’s July, the nights can be quite cold (and sometimes rainy in Belgium). It might not be very comfortable to stay in a tent, especially in rainy conditions. Be prepared with hoodies and rain gear.
Advantages
- The Full Experience: Staying in Dreamville offers the complete Tomorrowland experience. It’s hard to put into words, but once you’re there, you’ll understand.
- Extended Party: Tomorrowland’s official schedule may end, but the party continues in Dreamville after-hours.
- Proximity to the Festival: Dreamville is within walking distance of the festival entrance, making it convenient to enjoy the music without long commutes.
- New Friendships: Sharing the camping area with fellow festivalgoers fosters new friendships and enhances the overall experience.
- Dreamville Facilities: Dreamville boasts various facilities such as tennis and squash courts, a gym, gym classes, and yoga classes. It’s like a miniature city.
- Outside Food and Drinks: You can bring food, water, and even alcohol from outside Dreamville. There’s a supermarket about 25 minutes away with affordable prices. Plastic bottles are allowed.
- Supermarket: A supermarket within Dreamville is available, but prices are higher compared to the one outside.
- Strong Bonds: Camping tends to strengthen bonds among friends. The experience is unique and shared, creating lasting memories.
- Price-to-Fun Ratio: Dreamville offers a better price-to-fun ratio compared to more expensive accommodations in Belgium. Considering train costs and travel time, Dreamville is a great deal.
- Early Start: Staying in Dreamville grants access to an extra show on Thursday, exclusive to Dreamville guests. This adds an extra dimension to your experience.
How to Get Tickets and Prices
The process
Now for the tricky part—how do you secure Tomorrowland tickets? It may sound simple, but it’s actually quite challenging and requires a lot of luck, especially for larger groups. First and foremost, you’ll need an account on “My Tomorrowland,” which you can create here. There are several sales events, including a separate sale for Belgian citizens. I recommend following Tomorrowland’s official sources for all sale events. I’ll provide a high-level overview of the common steps.
With your “My Tomorrowland” account ready, usually around November-December, you need to submit a form expressing your interest in attending Tomorrowland the following year. Completing this form grants you access to a pre-sale event. Tickets are primarily sold during two major events: pre-sale and public sale, which occur closely together. The public sale is accessible to everyone, whereas only those who completed the aforementioned form gain access to the private pre-sale. Keep in mind that you have a limited window to complete the form.
Here’s the good and bad news. The downside? Many people participate in both the public and private sales, likely millions. Upon entry, you join a queue, and a random number assigns you a spot. I tried both sales, but everything was sold out by the time I accessed them, unfortunately.
Now, the upside? There’s an exciting feature called the “First 20.” The first 20 people from every country who complete the pre-sale form have a private pre-sale event exclusive to them before the main pre-sale event. This option is almost a guarantee of securing tickets, considering only 20 people per country are included. My group lucked out, and two people in our group were part of the “First 20” for Romania. This allowed us to buy 8 tickets in total, as each person could buy up to 4 tickets. We obtained 2 Easy Tent 4-person packages, which was how we managed to secure our spot at Tomorrowland. It’s definitely worth closely monitoring the start of the form to seize this opportunity.
I’m not well-informed about unofficial sources, as I didn’t extensively research them. However, based on conversations with other attendees, those who didn’t purchase directly through Tomorrowland often used viagogo and paid a much higher price for tickets.
Prices
As for ticket costs, pre-sale tickets are generally a bit cheaper than public sale tickets. If you purchase during the First 20 event, you pay the public sale price.
However, this also increases your likelihood of securing tickets. Here are some examples of prices:
- Full Madness (3-day entrance to the festival only): €295 during the private sale, €355 during the public sale.
- Magnificent Greens Package: €370 during the private sale, €430 during the public sale.
- Easy Tent 4-person Package: €2127 during the private sale, €2339 during the public sale.
This website is an excellent resource for viewing all the prices.
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Before the Festival
A few things to keep in mind before heading to the festival, including transportation and add-ons you can purchase from Tomorrowland.
Transportation: Tomorrowland partners with SNCB, the Belgian railway company. They offer a 50% discount on train tickets from any city or airport in Belgium to Boom. About a week before the festival, you’ll receive coupon codes in your Tomorrowland account to purchase these discounted train tickets. Once in Boom, free shuttles organized by Tomorrowland take you directly to Dreamville.
For travelers coming from Romania, flying to Brussels is the easiest option. Be aware that there’s an airport in Brussels city, connected to the train, as well as an airport called Charleroi, mainly used by low-cost airlines. However, Charleroi requires an additional 1-hour bus ride to reach the city. If the price difference isn’t significant, I recommend flying directly to the central Brussels airport to avoid the extra bus journey. I booked our flights through Kiwi, and if you don’t have an account, you can get a €20 discount for your first flight using this link.
Tomorrowland’s bracelets are also noteworthy. They come in a stylish package and are sent via mail, arriving 3-4 weeks before the festival. The main buyer receives all the bracelets for the group. Bracelets need to be activated through your Tomorrowland account before attending the festival. An interesting campaign offered free beer equivalent for every €100 you topped up on your bracelet. The bracelets serve as your method of payment for all purchases at Tomorrowland, except for the supermarket within Dreamville, where card payments are accepted.
Now, about those add-ons. About 2-3 weeks before the festival, Tomorrowland provides the opportunity to purchase add-ons for an enhanced experience. These could include breakfast, beer, lockers, and more. The ones we selected were:
- Locker: This proved to be very useful in Dreamville, especially if your package doesn’t already include one. We shared a single locker among our group of 8, using it to secure passports, keys, wallets, and other valuable items during the festival.
- Beer Add-On: An exciting and exclusive add-on for Dreamville packages. You could purchase 24 beers for €29, a great deal, and it was available in limited quantities. I recommend considering this add-on in advance, as it’s the most economical way to get beer in Dreamville. They come in cans, so you can pace yourself.
The Festival
Upon arriving at the festival, there are a few important things to note and several helpful tips to maximize your experience.
Immediate To-Do List:
- Tomorrowland has a paying system called pearls. This makes things a bit more complicated when you need to do the math for how much something costs, one of the only things I didn’t really like at Tomorrowland. In 2023, 1 pearl was the equivalent for 1.74€. Everytime you would want to buy something you would see the prices in pearls so keep that in mind.
- The Tomorrowland merch sells out incredibly fast. If you want that cool T-shirt you see on their website, make this your first priority. We arrived there on Thursday ~18:00 and we couldn’t find the one we wanted already. Buy your swag as soon as possible. Oh btw, you can also pay by card for that, not with the bracelet only
- Power banks. They also had a very cool program for getting a power bank if you didn’t bring one. You would pay 15 pearls to get a 5000 mAh power bank and everytime you consume it, you could take it back to their office and get a charged one. At the end of the festival, you could take your power bank back and get 8 pearls in return. Basically, you paid 7 pearls to rent unlimited power banks, very cool!
- Do your shopping soon. Explore Dreamville, but trust me, the prices are the best at the supermarket outside Dreamville. Go there and buy everything you need for a snack, breakfast, water, beer etc.
- Have the Tomorrowland app updated and ready. 2-3 weeks before the festival it became available with the full line up and schedule with all the artists and where they would play. You can save your favorites and create your schedule for where to be and when according to your favorites.
Prices
You may be curious on how much things cost at Tomorrowland obviously. There were honestly lots of food options, cocktails, beers and many many types of drinks. They are quite frequent both in Dreamville and the festival area and the queues are very decent, usually 10 minutes. Some high level prices:
- Small beer (0.25L) – 2 pearls / €3.48
- Big beer (0.4) – 3.75 pearls / €6.53
- Gin + Soft or Energy – 7.25 pearls / €12.62
- Bacon/Black Pepper Burger – 7.25 pearls / €12.11
- 2 Pancakes Banana + Nutella – 4.5 pearls / €7.52
Again, this website is a great reference for prices at the festival. Mentioning it again, for every 100€ you topped up before the festival, you would get an additional 2 pearls. However, keep in mind that they can be used once you have used all those 100€ in pearls equivalent. Still, a decent deal for some extra drinks at the festival.
The experience
The festival itself looked …. Just next level. In 2023 the main stage theme was a huge castle which made you feel like you’re in a Disney park for adults. The Tomorrowland area is quite big and it will take some time to cover, but once you get a feeling of the most popular stages and where they are, it gets easy to navigate around.
I recommend going early on your first day to explore the area and know where to find what, see the stages and explore a bit. It won’t be very easy to go from one stage to another during the main acts and if two artists are playing back to back on different stages, unfortunately you will most likely miss one of them. So properly get a feeling of the stages first, enjoy the area and familiarize yourself with everything around.
The party itself? It’s just next level. The main stage is for sure the most impressive one, with a crazy show announcing the next artist playing in the 5-10 minute break there. At the end of the day, there’s a huge fireworks show at the main stage. I highly recommend one of the days staying more in the back to see the full stage, the show and to just … be impressed. At the same time, I highly recommend the other day to stay very close to the main stage to get the full vibe and experience a closing show right there in the action.
Won’t keep this long and boring so here’s my advices for the festival itself:
- Don’t forget a rain jacket. Belgium is famous for the rainy weather and the forecast that can change from one hour to another. Have a rain jacket with you all the time, it was very handy to keep me 5 hours at the main stage waiting for Martin Garrix
- Don’t forget a power bank, especially if you want to save some extra money and don’t use the charging service there
- Bring a flag with you! Ideally, a funny costume too. You will see tens if not hundreds of flags with countries, symbols or artists. You’ll blend in much better.
- If you really wanna see an artist, get to that stage at least 30 minutes in advance, it can get very crowded and you could miss it.
- Most importantly, have fun! It’s an amazing experience and once you’ve been at Tomorrowland, the bar will be raised veeeery high for other events. Grab your friends, listen to some good music and have a good time!
I hope this article helps you plan your Tomorrowland adventure. If all goes as planned, I’ll see you at Tomorrowland 2024!
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This article does not contain any paid promotion on hotels / rental car companies / restaurants etc., everything is documented based on my experience.
