Why you should get excited about Tomorrowland's NYE event
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By Ryan Hayes
NYE is just around the corner, and this year things are looking a little different. With COVID-19 restrictions in full effect across Canada our usual winter festival offerings have all been cancelled, we’ve been sequestered to our homes for the remainder of the holiday season. Under these unprecedented circumstances Tomorrowland’s digital NYE offering is the perfect, and only, true alternative for dance music lovers who are currently suffering from the winter blues. With long, dark, and cold days piled on top of a lackluster summer—we all need a shot of pure serotonin—and Tomorrowland is here to deliver.
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The digital festival is set to feature 24 sets, across 4 unique stages, from 8pm to 3am local time (adapted across 27 time zones). While July’s Tomorrowland Around The World took place in the digital wonderland dubbed Pāpiliōnem, Tomorrowland’s NYE offering has shifted to the newly minted NAOZ. Advertised as a ‘revolutionary and future-proof virtual entertainment world,’ NAOZ is the world's first virtual super-club.
For their summer festival Tomorrowland built four green screen studios around the world, each with 38 digital cameras. Jointly they amassed over 300 terabytes of raw footage, the result was a wildly successful virtual experiment and proof of concept for all future Tomorrowland events.
The absolutely stacked lineup features mainstage legends like Martin Garrix, Armin van Buuren, & David Guetta; while branching out with acts like Duck Sauce, Boys Noize, Maceo Plex, & Charlotte De Witte. There is even a performance by Snoop Dogg AKA DJ Snoopadelic…because why not. Both Diplo and David Guetta are holding down double duty; with Major Lazer playing earlier in the night hopefully Diplo is freed up to explore his Higher Grounds house side when he hits the Planaxis stage just before midnight. Guetta has a mainstage timeslot, which promises to offer a mixture of classics and Future Rave, as well as after-party duties; he is closing out the festival on the Melodia stage as Jack Back from 2-3am.
Tomorrowland has proven that their artists take their sets seriously, treating them exactly the same as they would a top tier festival on the global circuit. Garrix has promised 9 new IDs for his set, stating; “I’m going to play so much unreleased music and I really want to take people on a journey, playing some different sounding stuff and new things.”
Tickets are twenty Euros, approximately $31 Canadian, or the price of two overpriced festival drinks. If you want to relive all of the sets on demand for two weeks after the event it’ll cost you an extra five Euros. Round up your household bubble—or Zoom with your festival crew—find your best speakers, dress up, order some LEDs from Amazon, & keep the drinks flowing. The more stock you place in digital events like this, the more you get out of them. This is your excuse to go all out—fully overboard—and rave from home.
It’s time to celebrate the end of a turbulent year, and this is as close to the real thing as you are going to get. I promise.
Just dive in….because why not?
