The 2nd annual TomorrowWorld was held at the same location this year in Chattahoochie, Georgia. The festival is produced by ID&T, the production company that holds Tomorrowland, which began in 2005, in Belgium. The founders of ID&T decided to bring the festival to America last year to the previous location of Counterpoint music festival. All of the staging and décor for TomorrowWorld was shipped from Belgium, creating an authentic atmosphere similar to the Eupropean festival.
I attended TomorrowWorld last year and was blown away by the production quality, the stages, sound, location and layout of the festival. Strolling through the magical arches and lights and walking across the bridge that overlooked the lake, I felt as if I was in a dream world. I stayed at a hotel and drove to the event each day but his year I decided to get the full festival experience by camping (for my first time!).
Wednesday 10:00 pm in Plano, TX- The Journey Begins! – I frantically stuffed my bag with last minute items because I realized I would not have the chance to retrieve forgotten items once I got to the campgrounds. My friends and I stuffed the car with camping gear and travel essentials as we anxiously prepared for the next adventurous five days of our lives. The 12-hour car ride from Texas to Chattahouchie gave us plenty of time to listen to music, talk about artists we wanted to see and and converse about life. We headed to the airport to pick up a friend who decided to fly in; his flight didn’t land until 4 so we had a few hours to kill. While waiting for him, we met several other TomorrowWorlders waiting for friends at the airport. I had the chance to talk to them about where they were from, who they were looking forward to seeing, and what they loved about the festival.
4:30 pm– Once our friend landed, we made one last stop to our reliable neighborhood store, Wal Mart. Wal Mart was filled with festies preparing to camp and loading their carts up with camping essentials including food, beer, flashlights, sunscreen, shower supplies, water bottles and anything else you could think of for a five day adventure of camping. When we arrived in Chattahoochie, Georgia, we parked, unloaded all of our stuff from the car and headed to our tent. There were different parking areas depending on where you were camping. Camping options included bringing your own tent in Dreamville, having a tent set up in the easy tents, camping with friends in friendship camping or having a cabin in the Dreamlodges. We stayed in the easy tents, which included a tent, sleeping bag, blow up air mattress and lantern which we were able to take home with us after the festival. Each of the camping areas required a special bracelet for entry. As long as you were camping, you were able to enter into Dreamville. This was a great feature of the festival as it created exclusivity and safety. With the excitement of the Gathering and having traveled for so long we dumped our stuff of at our assigned tent, changed quickly and headed to the stage where The Gathering took place.
The Gathering– The Gathering on Thursday was held at a special stage at the end of Dreamville. At the Gathering we saw Vaski, M4Sonic, Sultan + Ned Sheppard, DVBBS and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike & Yves V. Vaski’s style includes chill step, indie step and future with remixes including “Sweater Weather” and “Come a little closer” and originals including “Killing Time” and “Hakuna Matata.” This was my first time seeing Vaski perform and I truly enjoyed his set and vibing to his music. Sultan + Ned Sheppard and Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike also played at the Gathering. Both of their sets were incredible and exceeded my expectations of what it would be like to see them live. Sultan + Ned Sheppard played the track “Sky Full of Stars” as smoke cannons shot smoke over the crowd marking one of the many beautiful moments of TomorrowWorld. They also played another festival favorite “Pompeii” by Bastille. Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike played “No Beef” by Afrojack mashed up with their hit track “Mammoth.” Alex and Chris aka DVBBS always throw down with a unique style packed with energy on stage. Their performances always get me amped up for life. They have a recently released track “We were young” that was a crowd hit. Another great track by DVBBS is “Goldskies”which they produced with Sander Van Doorn and Martin Garrix with the beautiful vocals by Aleesia.
DAY 1
Day 1 of Tomorrowworld started out with taking a quick shower and heading to the stages. The showers were clean and the lines moved pretty fast. After we got ready, we headed over to the madness! The main stage was volcano-themed this year with fire shooting out of the middle. The names of the other stages changed each day, yet had numbers associated with them on the map in order to find them.
1:00 pm– It was the first set we saw was Le Castle Vania on the main stage and he killed it with crowd energy, smooth transitions and awesome music. He played tracks including “Around the World” and his remix of Kaskade’s “Turn it Down.” Henry Fong, Cazzette, and Zedd also played on main stage had incredible sets. Zedd’s ability to throw down every time I see him perform continues to impress me. Sandro Silva, Deniz Koyu and Laidback Luke played on the Super You & Me Stage. Jordan Suckley performed on the Trance Addict stage with a high energy set.
9:00 pm– The artist mansion was unlike any place I have ever been. It was originally a horse stable brought from Belgium and was transformed into an artist paradise. The vibe here was very calm as all of the artists had the chance to hang out and catch up in a relaxed environment away from the madness. There were soccer goals and a large field perfect for getting a nice view of the festival from a far distance. I ended the night with the group, Yellowclaw on the “It’s a Trap!!” stage who threw down! I got down to the track “Shotgun.” They had the entire crowd singing along to the lyrics as they stood on the DJ booth with shirts off getting the crowd extra hyped! Don’t be afraid to get extra sweaty on this stage!
1:30 am- Dreamville Afterparty! I headed back to the campsite amped up on life. Festies continued to dance, listen to music and talk about the adventures of Day 1.
DAY 2
I wanted venture out to the stages I hadn’t been to. I decided to check out this stage in the middle of the bridge with sand on the dancefloor that was overlooking the lake. This stage wasn’t listed on the map but I got my deep house fix and discovered a new group- Russo and met one of the members, Noah Souder.
4:00 pm– Neon performed at the Belgian Stage. Neon has played at every single Tomorrowland in Belgium! I got down to Deorro’s set on main stage. I love his funky, bouncy sound. One of my favorite tracks is “Perdóname”. Deorro and MAKJ also just made a track together “Ready.” MAKJ also performed later in the evening that day on the Anthem Stage. I enjoyed sets by Belgian artists, The Oddword and Mystique at the Belgian stage. I got the chance to party Belgian style with my new Belgian friends!
Other Saturday highlights: Dillon Francis played at the Mad Decent Stage and ended his set with “I wanna dance with somebody” This is one of the many reasons to love Dillon! MAKJ performed on the Anthem stage and threw down bangers including “Lose your mind” “Turn Down for what” and “Countdown.” Skrillex- Played trap/rap in his set including “In the club on a Tuesday”, “Work Remix” by A$AP Ferg and “Recess” by Skrillex, Kill the Noise and Fatman Scoop.
DAY 3
1:00 pm– I headed to the Fullon stage! Ferry Corsten played B2B with different artists all day including Cosmic Gate, Andrew Rayel and Audien at the Fullon stage. Audien recently released his Michael Jackson remix, “Slave to the Rhythm” which is one of the two Michael Jackson remixes ever released! Cosmic Gate played tracks from their newest album “Start to Feel.”
4:00 pm– Morgan Page performed on main stage. Morgan played his classic track “The longest road” and mixed in festival bangers including “bounce generation.” W&W performed on main stage and played their banger “Big Foot.” They also played tracks including “ID” and “We Control the Sound.” Their new track with Hardell and Fatman Scoop “Don’t Stop The Madness,” will be released at the end of the year.
Other Sunday Favorites– Dim Mak vs Smash the House Stage– Shout out out to this stage for being fully stacked with talent including Dirtyphonics, Yves Vs Regi, 3lau, Wolfpack, DVBBS, Keys N Krates, Deorro, Borgore and special guest Waka Flaka. After their tour with Steve Aoki, it was cool to see DimMak bring Waka Flaka out.
With TomorrowWorld being held in Georgia and Tomorrowland in Belgium, it was awesome that Tomorrowworld had a Belgian stage where they brought out Belgian artists and an ATL stage with artists from Atlanta. It was great to have all of these Belgian artists in America. Le Castle Vania closed the ATL stage, with his hometown being Atlanta. “Must Die” also threw down in the ATL stage.
FESTPOP TIPS
Checklist:
– Phone Chargers- Bring portable chargers and extras. You don’t want to have a dead phone!
– Flip-flops for the showers and shower supplies
– Stereo for music at your tent- you need some after-jam jamz.
– Portable power sources and batteries- You will want power for your music, chargers etc.
– Pillows- if you’re camping fluffy pillows are a must. Make your tent comfy!
– Sleeping bags
– Try camping at least once. Life is all about trying new things! You will come home with awesome stories!
– Don’t forget your booze! Everyone gets to bring either a handle or case of beer to the campsite.
– Parking: There are a lot of cars out there. If you are going to camp, I would recommend keeping your car parked once you’re there. If you are staying in a hotel, I would take the shuttle. Trying to enter and exit/park can be a hassle.
– Get lost in the festival and feel the music. Go on adventures and go with the flow.
– Discover something new
– Don’t freak out if you lose your friends- make new friends
– Live in the moment and be open-minded to new sounds and different artists
Cool Festie Features
Showers- there are multiple showers in the shower area and they are clean. I would recommend showering during off times. If you try to shower in the morning when everyone is waking up, you will have to wait the longest. If you can hang out at your campsite and wait or if you have the energy before bed, you won’t have to wait as long or even at all.
Clean up stations to brush your teeth and freshen up- the clean up stations even have mouthwash in case you forgot yours
Nice Porto potties- there is an overload of porto potties which is nice because no one likes waiting to pee!
Charging Stations- The charging stations have lockers for you to lock up your phone and charge it so you don’t have to stand and wait.
Charging blocks you can rent out- for $20, you can rent out a charging block which includes to tokens to trade it out twice when it dies. This is nice so you can take your phone with you while it charges.
21 and up- Tomorrowworld is 21 and up so everyone you are partying with is legal!
The Village- checks out the cool vendors with clothes and unique items. I discovered moonmats and psychedelic paint- items you don’t see every day!
The food- there is a variety of food from chicken and waffles, pizza, fruit, breakfast, quesadillas, tacos, sushi- pretty much anything you would want.
Load up your bracelet with tokens- You can load up your Tomorrowworld bracelet with tokens in order to pay for food/drinks. This is cool so you don’t have to carry money around with you. $20 gives you 9 tokens and meals/drinks are around 5 tokens. Just remember, you can only pay with tokens so you will need to visit a token stand to add tokens to your bracelet. They are conveniently located near the food and drink stands.
Get lost in the experience, the vibe, the music and culture! Tomorrowworld!
“Yesterday’s history; today’s a gift; tomorrow’s a mystery”
Written by FestPop Staff Writer
Suzanne Ledford
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