Tomorrowland aiming for three-weekend festival in 2022

Tomorrowland’s organisers have tabled plans to extend the festival across three weekends in 2022.

The idea has come about after the forced cancellations of the annual festival in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Tomorrowland spokesperson Debby Wilmsen telling Het Laatste Nieuws that organisers “really have to do this to cushion the financial hangover” of the last two years. “Before COVID, there were no plans to start organising three weekends,” she added.

Tomorrowland will submit an application to the municipalities of Boom, where the festival is held, and Rumst, as well as to Antwerp, citing “economic necessity to compensate for the cancellations” as an argument for why the festival should be able to go ahead for three weekends in 2022.

Tomorrowland’s main summer event has been held across two weekends since 2017, with all previous editions – save for 2014’s 10th anniversary festival – having taken place across one weekend.

The cancellation of Tomorrowland’s various events amid the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a financial loss of over €25 million, in addition to financial worries for suppliers, freelancers and other kinds of employees.

“Do not forget that we have already had to miss six festival weekends, four in Belgium and another two in France with Tomorrowland Winter,” Wilmsen said. “We also owe it to our festival-goers; we get an enormous amount of questions about tickets and the waiting lists keep growing.” 

Wilmsen pointed out that Tomorrowland did not intend to continue with a three-weekend event beyond 2022, should the festival’s application be approved. “Our request really is one-off,” she said.

While next year’s event is also confirmed to take place across the weekends of 22nd-24th July and 29th-31st July, it’s hoped that should the organisers’ application be approved for an extra weekend, it would go ahead from 15th-17th July.

Tomorrowland will next return for its winter edition in the French Alps from 19th-16th March, 2022. Armin van Buuren, Paul Kalkbrenner and Afrojack are among the artists confirmed to play so far.

The organisation also recently launched a record label with a new project from Afrojack.