A fire on Wednesday evening destroyed the elaborate main stage at Tomorrowland, a major electronic music festival scheduled to begin on Friday in Belgium.
Nobody was injured in the fire, organizers said. They did not identify its cause.
“The Orbyz Mainstage of Tomorrowland Belgium 2025, a creation born from pure passion, imagination, and dedication, is no more,” the festival said on its website on Thursday morning. “It’s impossible to put into words what we’re feeling.”
Other areas and stages of the festival grounds were unaffected and the festival will go on as planned, organizers said.
As of Thursday morning, the fire had been extinguished and firefighters had left the festival site, according to Brandweerzone Rivierenland, the local fire department.
The fire department said it received a call about a fire around 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday. Around three hours later, the fire was under control, but firefighters stayed through the night to put out flare-ups.
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The main stage was destroyed by fire a day before the opening of the festival.Credit…Belga, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The fire left ticket holders disappointed. “The main stage is what gives the festival its atmosphere and is what makes it so special,” said Jules Adam, 28, who went to Tomorrowland last year and is planning to be there again on Friday.
The elaborate main stage, which is different every year, is a highlight of the festival grounds. This year, Tomorrowland’s theme is Orbyz, “a magical universe made entirely out of ice.”
“This wasn’t just a stage. It was a living, breathing world,” the festival’s organizers said in a statement. “From the very first sketch on a blank page, to countless hours of conceptual design, artistic collaboration, engineering, crafting, building, every single piece of Orbyz carried part of our soul.”
The elaborate stage included fireworks, which were set off by the fire, according to the fire department. Video recorded Wednesday showed fireworks exploding above the stage within billowing plumes of smoke.
Tomorrowland, which is held in Boom, a town south of Antwerp, attracts more than 400,000 people every year, along with some of the biggest names in electronic dance music. The 2025 edition was scheduled to run over the next two weekends.
Stjepan Grgic, 33, traveled from London with his fiancé to attend the festival, together with two friends who came over from Australia. “The main event is the main stage,” he said. “It’s a massive loss.”
The campground opened on Thursday morning for attendees as planned, organizers said. They said they were working on a solution for the loss of the main stage.
Performances on the main stage were scheduled to start on Friday. David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia and Steve Aoki are among the artists scheduled to play.
“It’s such a shame for the people who worked on it,” said Mr. Adam, the attendee, who lives about an hour’s drive from the festival in the south of the Netherlands.
“I’m glad it happened before the festival and not during the festival,” he said. “Then things would be much worse.”