Fire has broken out and “severely damaged” the main stage of Tomorrowland festival in Boom, Belgium, just days before opening to the public.
The EDM festival is set to take place across two weekends from July 18 until July 27. However, at around 6pm local time on July 16, the main stage went up in flames. Around 1000 staff members were present at the time but were evacuated. No injuries or fatalities have been confirmed.
On social media, images showed both flames and plumes of black smoke engulfing the stage. It’s unclear what sparked the fire.
According to Belgium public broadcaster VRT, the festival’s main stage has almost completely burned down.
“Due to a serious incident and fire on the Tomorrowland Mainstage, our beloved Mainstage has been severely damaged,” the organisers posted on the event’s website.
“We can confirm that no one was injured during the incident.”
The statement also noted that the “DreamVille” campsite would open on Thursday as planned and they were “focused on finding solutions for the festival weekend”.
Roughly 400,000 people are expected to attend across both weekends with the line-up including hundreds of artists such as David Guetta, Deadmau5, Armin Van Buuren and Charlotte de Witte.
Each year, the main stage at Tomorrowland embodies the festival’s theme. This year, the theme was ‘Orbyz’. According to the event’s website, ‘Orbyz’ is set in “a magical universe made entirely out of ice, [it] will reveal a hidden community that has been existing under a gigantic ice cap for many years.”
“Once the mass of ice and glaciers starts melting, the indigenous community rises to the surface, consisting of a unique source of light, energy, and power that originates from powerful, red-colored crystals and rocks.”
Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time that the main stage has caught on fire. In 2017 more than 22,000 punters were evacuated from the Tomorrowland Unite festival in Barcelona, Spain after a suspected pyrotechnics malfunction.
Image via Nine and Tomorrowland Festival
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