Tomorrowland

Building an immersive experience for the leader in music festivals

Tomorrowland is one of the world’s biggest EDM festivals. But in 2020, with the world locked down, it was uncertain whether this celebrated festival would take place.

Find out how Dogstudio (part of DEPT®) helped Tomorrowland create the groundbreaking digital-only experience: Tomorrowland, Around the World.

An immersive experience brought to life

Over two days, Tomorrowland fans from all around the world (one million people) immersed themselves in a magical world. Thanks to a WebGL experience made for both mobile and desktop, fans could attend their favorite sets from the comfort of their homes.

At any EDM festival, daytime and nighttime sets have different vibes, so we recreated that by designing and developing day mode and night mode. This made the festival feel as lifelike as possible, with set times aligning with a traditional music festival schedule.

Now imagine an island filled with boats, lampoons, fishes, god rays, butterflies, and clouds. These whimsical elements were crucial to nail that magical feeling that Tomorrowland is known for.

To delight visitors, we added several features to make the island feel alive, positioning all of them through a WYSIWYG editable spline system so that the Tomorrowland team could help us find the best placements.

Exploration & navigation

During the festival, islanders freely roamed around the island by panning, zooming in/out, and clicking. But as for any festival, the people came for the music. By using a halo of lights displayed around the several stages, we represented the network of people around them, making them a part of the experience.

By clicking on the stages, islanders could find information about the location, stage, and lineup before entering the show. Once inside a stage, users were immediately dropped into a unique DJ performance integrated into the amazing 3D world created by Tomorrowland.

We love little details. That’s why made everything fully configurable through our GUI. We also added surprise fireworks to mark the end of the shows on the first day, just like an in-person festival.