Hidden deep in Chattahoochee Hills outside of Atlanta, Ga., the first installment of one of the biggest music festivals in the world opened its gates for over 140 thousand crazed EDM (electronic dance music) fans. TomorrowWorld is the American spin-off to the eight-year-old Belgium music festival, TomorrowLand. The weekend of Sept. 27–29 marked the first of a ten-year projected contract for TomorrowWorld in the United States.
TomorrowWorld played host to over 300 DJs that were spread out over three days and seven stages. Each day, gates opened to the festival at one in the afternoon and shows ended at two in the morning. Attendees had multiple choices between buying full weekend passes with camping to one-day passes without camping. The camping area, known as Dreamville, housed 30,000 campers and offered showers, food courts and tents for those who did not bring their own.
But besides the packed lineup and cozy camping experience, there was something else that made TomorrowWorld exotic: the people. Being the sister festival to one of the biggest festivals in Europe meant that Americans were not going to be the only ones enjoying this festival.
“TomorrowWorld was like nothing I could’ve imagined. And people came from literally all over the world, which was magical. They put so much work into every detail. They created a fairyland. An unforgettable, otherworldly experience I’ll never forget,” said Sally Wammack, senior at UM.
This “fairyland” was made up of seven stages spread out over 500 acres of land. One of which, Main Stage, was designed to look like TomorrowLand’s “Book of Life” stage, but each stage was designed with a theme that would match the flow of music being played there.
The land TomorrowWorld has laid claim to was previously the spot for Counterpoint Music Festival, which took place the same weekend in 2012. However, since TomorrowWorld has signed a ten-year contract with the landowners, Counterpoint has moved to a different location, still in the state of Georgia, and will be in the spring instead of the fall.
TomorrowWorld is the first 21+ festival of it’s kind, and after all the scrutiny from the media due to overdoses at festivals such as Electric Zoo, there was pressure to make sure drug usage was not tolerated. And apparently, the TomorrowWorld team did something right; only 17 people throughout the whole weekend needed extended medical treatment outside of the facility.
“It’s magical,” said Gina Bresler, senior at UM, “I could barely wrap my mind around the mysticism of the wonderland I was inside of.”
A wonderland that the southeast will get to play host to for the next ten-years.
