A fire has completely destroyed the Tomorrowland mainstage in Boom, Belgium, mere days before the event is slated to take place.
A fire broke out today around 6pm CEST on the mainstage of Tomorrowland at the De Schorre venue in Boom, Belgium, less than two days before the start of the EDM festival’s first weekend on Friday, July 18.
The first video and photos circulating on Reddit appeared to show that the blaze consumed a large swath of the structure. Open flames spread through several floors of decorative installations and scaffolding, with loud bangs presumed by online commentators to be fireworks ringing out. More recent photos published by HLN show that the main stage has since been severely damaged.
“Due to a serious incident and fire on the Tomorrowland Mainstage, our beloved Mainstage has been severely damaged,” Tomorrowland said in its official statement. “We can confirm that no one was injured during the incident.” According to the festival, DreamVille will open tomorrow (Thursday, July 17) as planned, all Global Journey activities in Brussels and Antwerp will proceed as scheduled, and its organizers are focused on finding solutions for the festival weekend.
“Our showpiece, which took two years to build, is gone,” Debby Wilmsen told VRT News. “Fortunately, the other stages are intact. The intention is truly for the festival to go on. But we can’t work magic, so it will be without the Mainstage. Our production team will now do everything to make something beautiful out of it.”
According to local media outlet GVA, emergency service workers “in large numbers” arrived on site. Locals were encouraged to keep their doors and windows closed.
HLN also reported that the fire may have spread to the adjacent wooded area, and a local WhatsApp group claims the fire is spreading near their homes. Several residents were reportedly evacuated, but the fire department says the situation is under control.
Tomorrowland started in 2005, initially attracting 10,000 revelers over the course of a single day. In the two decades since, it has expanded to host 600 performing artists across 16 different stages over two weekends, with total attendance routinely topping 400,000.
This is not the first time a fire has broken out at a Tomorrowland event. In 2017, a blaze on the mainstage of UNITE Barcelona led organizers to evacuate more than 22,000 attendees from the gathering.
No injuries or fatalities have been reported as a result of the Tomorrowland mainstage fire at the time of writing. This is a developing story, and EDM Identity will update it as more information becomes available.