First actual day of Tomorrowland! Had breakfast in downtown Dreamville, walked around a little bit, and then headed over around 13:30. Red Bull had a marching band which joined us on the walk into the festival.
Once I got there, you walk through some food areas and then right into the MainStage area. That place is enormous! Definitely much bigger than the main stage at EDC or any other festival I had ever been to. The stage was set up in this valley so you had a good view from whereever you were... up on the hill, you could see over everyone else, and then down on the dance floor area, the stage was just so massive that you could see everything really well there too. The stage even had waterfalls on it!
The first artist who I wanted to see was Giuseppe Ottaviani at the Rise by Coke Studio stage. He's a regular on Armin's A State of Trance radio show and pretty famous so I was expecting a much bigger stage, especially after how huge the main stage was. Instead, it was a cozy area though which was very packed. After Giuseppe, we explored some of the other stages a bit and walked around the festival grounds. At the Elixir stage, there was a great vibe going where everyone was dancing to the 90's hits. Headed back to Rise to see Ruben de Ronde, Armin's co-host for ASOT. Then went back to the MainStage for Vintage Culture.
Headed to the other extreme end of the grounds to see a bit of Mau P at the Freedom By Bud stage. Unlike most of the other stages which were outside, this was a giant square building, which I assume they built just for the festival each year. It was nice and dark inside so they were able to do more creative things with the lighting than the outside stages. They had the A/C cranked up but there were a lot of people to cool off so it wasn't working that well!
After Mau P ended, I went back to Rise to see Aaron Hibell, who did the soundtrack for the Oppenheimer movie. Stayed for Cosmic Gate.
Finally wound up back at MainStage to see Swedish House Mafia followed by Armin Van Buuren to close out the night. Armin brought up a special guest, Rob Swire from Pendulum, to sing "Sound of You" which was really cool. Pendulum is one of James' favorite artists so I made sure to grab a clip of him playing.
The venue closed at 1am so we all headed back into Dreamville. I couldn't fall asleep right away after being all pumped up from the amazing music so I explored the campgrounds a bit more. I was surprised that nearly everybody just went right to sleep rather than continuing the party.
Had a croissant and this Jaffa donut for breakfast. It was similar to a Pimm’s cookie with orange jam inside of it. Wasn’t a fan…
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🎥 Movie: The Red Bull Marching Band pumps up the crowd in the Marketplace area
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Dreamville also had a full gym and workout facility
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Walking towards the festival, they had an artist painting in the woods
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🎥 Movie: Red Bull marching band joining us on the walk to the fest
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First glimpse of the MainStage. This thing is enormous, in this huge valley.
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Looking back up the hill, they built these 3 huge temporary buildings for VIP and bars
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Myke and Harris at the MainStage
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Pano from the dance floor at MainStage
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Rise by Coke Studio stage to see Giuseppe Ottaviani
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Looking back at the rest of the festival grounds from Rise
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🎥 Movie: Crowd was a little packed so moved up to the bridge overlooking Rise for Giuseppe Ottaviani
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Looking back at the festival grounds from Rise
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🎥 Movie: Not my style of music, but hopped into the underground Cage stage to see a few minutes of Footworxx Militant Crew
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This group all had matching tshirts that said “OnlyFans Casting Crew”
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Jaël Ost & Magik performing at Elixir. The crowd on the right bank was doing dance moves and the opposite bank was mirroring them. They really had the crowd going!
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🎥 Movie: Party in the USA…in Belgium with Jaël Ost & Magik
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🎥 Movie: Since you been gone…
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Don’t Swim! Cyanobacteria active!
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Walking past the Rose Garden stage with a giant dragon
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Waterfall feature outside of the Freedom stage
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Behind the Elixir and Rose Garden stages
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Automated Beer Machines
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🎥 Movie: Down Under with butterfly people at Elixir for the Rick & James 80’s Party
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🎥 Movie: Up front with Ruben de Ronde at Rise
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Me with Ruben de Ronde in the background
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Ruben de Ronde!
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🎥 Movie: Ruben performs “Show Me Love”
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🎥 Movie: Ruben performs “Destination”
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Back side of the MainStage
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🎥 Movie: Vintage Culture at MainStage
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🎥 Movie: “I Don’t Wanna Wait” performed by Da Tweekaz
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🎥 Movie: Mau P at the Freedom stage. These giant butterflies had LED screens and would go up and down slowly which was amazing.
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🎥 Movie: Mau P at Freedom
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🎥 Movie: Aaron Hibell performing part of the background music from Oppenheimer
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🎥 Movie: Aaron Hibell, “destroyer of worlds”
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🎥 Movie: Smoke bubbles floating down at Rise
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🎥 Movie: “Ghost” by Aaron Hibell
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🎥 Movie: Cosmic Gate opener. I’m really surprised they weren’t at a bigger stage!
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🎥 Movie: Something for your mind…your body…and your soul.
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🎥 Movie: Cosmic Gate, an exploration of space, as dusk falls on day one
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🎥 Movie: Swedish House Mafia performs to a packed MainStage
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🎥 Movie: We’re gunna save the world tonight! wiith Swedish House Mafia
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🎥 Movie: Don’t you worry, child. Swedish House Mafia.
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The MainStage. There was this cool wooden sculpture off to House Left of a man laying on the ground and pointing up to the sky.
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🎥 Movie: Interstitial before Armin
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🎥 Movie: Armin Van Buuren
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🎥 Movie: Armin’s new single “In the Dark”
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🎥 Movie: What took you so long? with Armin
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🎥 Movie: Do you think you are better off alone? with Armin
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🎥 Movie: Armin rocking the MainStage
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🎥 Movie: “Blah blah blah” classic from Armin
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🎥 Movie: “Insomnia” with Armin
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🎥 Movie: “Kernkraft 400” (Zombie Nation) with Armin
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🎥 Movie: Armin's Great Spirit
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🎥 Movie: "Larger Than Life" with Armin
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🎥 Movie: Armin's Special Guest Rob Swire from Pendulum performing "Sound of You"
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Closing ceremony
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The flower is closed for the night
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Exiting the festival to Dreamville
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Artist's easels in the woods heading to the campsite
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