First held in 2005, Tomorrowland is one of the most popular electronic dance music festivals in the world. It takes place every year in Boom, Belgium and usually sells out in minutes.
This year, however, Tomorrowland announced that the 2020 edition of the festival would not take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, they didn’t want to disappoint the festival’s fans, so on June 4th, Tomorrowland announced its first-ever virtual festival. The event named Tomorrowland Around the World took place on July 25th and July 26th, and it was an absolute spectacle, bringing together the planet’s biggest names in electronic dance music and the world’s best technology in 3D design, video production, gaming and special effects.
A virtual fantasy world built just for the festival’s fans
To provide attendees with an extraordinary experience, Tomorrowland created Pāpiliōnem — a magical, virtual island — for the first digital edition of the festival. Attendees could navigate through a virtual representation of the island and interactively explore the entire festival site.
There are so many benefits to hosting virtual events, but probably the greatest perk of setting up the music festival online this year was that it was open to people of all ages and locations. There were no borders, no travel restrictions, just an unprecedented two-day festival experience.
Fans were invited to experience this unique event together with friends: dressing up with their best festival outfit, setting up a big screen, and enjoying the music and good vibes with their loved ones. The weekend was all about uniting through the power of music responsibly and safely.
Even the Walls.io team joined the event, and we were proud to see this beautiful integration of our social feed.
Even if the event couldn’t take place live in Belgium like every year, people “travelled” to the virtual island of Pāpiliōnem and had a great time.
Here’s an Instagram post from an excited fan:
Instagram user phoenix0910 writes:
“I am supposed to be in Boom, Belgium this weekend doing one of the things I love and that I do best….raving!!! Unfortunately, COVID had other plans. The people of tomorrow must now travel to the virtual island of #pāpiliōnem and rave at home. I wish I could be with my friends, I wish I wasn’t at a party of 1 and I wish the world was different but I can’t change what is, I can only be the change I want to see. So I’m gonna party like I’m there, I’m gonna dance like no one’s looking and look forward to when we can return to the holy grounds and live today, love tomorrow, and unite forever!! #TML #TOMORROWLAND #TOMORROWLAND2020“
Some of the attendees went all-in with their setup.
Tomorrowland has an impressive social media community. Their YouTube channel has over 9.8 million subscribers, they have 7.4 million followers on Instagram, and over 2.3 million followers on Twitter as of July 2020.
Social media plays a crucial role in building and maintaining the festival’s community and engaging people worldwide with Tomorrowland’s events. The festival even dedicated a special place to the Walls.io social media feed within the magical world of Pāpiliōnem.
Before entering the event’s virtual social feed, attendees were encouraged to share their experience on social media using the event’s official hashtag #Tomorrowland2020 on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Tomorrowland currently has twenty-six official partners including Pepsi Max, BMW Group, Budweiser, and Brussels Airlines, who all promote the festival as well.
Using the Walls.io sponsored posts feature, Tomorrowland made sure that their sponsors received a prominent advertisement space on the festival’s official social feed.
They had the sponsored posts designed and set up so that the ads blended in naturally with the user-generated content posted by fans on the social media wall. Each ad linked to a relevant landing page provided by the sponsors.
Virtual events with live-streams and social feeds have a central place in the event industry and will likely become more and more prevalent in the upcoming months and years. But social walls work well at physical events as well. So there’s a real chance we’ll see a huge social feed display when Tomorrowland returns to its event space in Boom, Belgium.