- Transport:
- When arriving in Boom by train you can get a free shuttle bus to either the main entrance or the Dreamville (campsite) entrance. These are on complete opposite ends of the festival area and are about an hour walk apart. It is also possible to enter Dreamville or Festival from a small road/path between the two, although this is not advertised and you can only get there by foot/bike.
- Although Belgian train operators SNCB advertizes how much they have tailored service to work with tomorrowland, effectively it is entirely useless if you want to go only one day or leave before Monday from the campground, unless you're going to antwerp. More concretely: There are no trains from Boom on Saturday/Sunday except three trains from midnight to around 2:30 am from Boom to Antwerp. But there are no trains from Antwerp to anywhere after midnight. So if you want to go to eg, Brussels, you're out of luck (you can wait in Antwerp until the first train around 6 am)
- There are however trains from Mechelen until around 11:30pm. Although there is no real mention of this anywhere, there are free shuttle buses from near the main entrance to Mechelen on the weekend (other days I believe this shuttle only goes to Boom, because you can get the hourly train from there instead).
- The other alternative if you want to go elsewhere in Belgium is to take a bus. If you're going for a single day, that's a good option. But you must reserve in advance online (22 euros with fees), and it sells out in advance. The problem if you're going multiple days is they won't let you go one day and return another, AND you cannot book one-way! What is possible though (at least if you're going to a big city) is to show up at the bus at Parking lot P8 near the main entrance and pay 25 euros for the one way return at night. It may be possible to book the day you leave and to just show up the day you want to return, with the bracelet they gave you, but I don't know if it will work.
- There is no public transport between Dreamville and the Main entrance. You can walk from the dreamville exit nearest the festival to the main entrance in about a half hour via public roads in order to avoid carrying your bags through security at the Tomorrowland entrance gate.
- I strongly suspect that you will find people/taxis willing to drive you from the Main entrance/exit of Dreamville to your destination of choice if leaving on sunday or monday. The same is true of the exit from Dreamville towards Tomorrowland, if you exit onto the roads.
- It's really big and you'll be on your feet a lot. Bring comfortable shoes, which you don't mind getting dirty.
- If you're wondering whether "Comfort"/VIP passes are worth it, then you should probably get them. The main advantage is shelter in case of rain/sun, seats for when you're tired, cleaner flush toilets, a little more space (in all cases, comfort areas are not the only alternatives, but often the best). In some cases they can provide a good view, but usually similar views can be had for free. There are also some occasional perks like food or massages and hot tubs/pools but these are more rare and somewhat gimmicky and/or you probably won't want to use them because of who came before you. In my case it balanced out some fairly bare-bones camping.
- Food
- "Booze bags" provide no booze, but only tokens that are used to buy food and drinks at the festival; the exchange rate is the same as if you buy tokens at the festival (1 token = 2 euros; significant inflation from the reports I heard of past years). The only difference is you get a map/schedule and a bag (and the maps are freely available at the info/booths) with the "booze bag". It is somewhat convenient to get it at the entrance though, if you know you'll spend 50 euros.
- When hearing people say how great the food is, keep in mind that it's a festival. It's half-decent, some of it is decent (if you pre-book the "gourmet" dinners which I didn't, it may even be "not bad"). But it's not great. And it's fairly expensive too. Frites which sell for 1.5-2 euros outside are 5 inside; a small slice of pizza is 6; decent burgers are 7 (crappy belgian plastic burgers are strangely 8); the best deal is the barbecue plate for 9 euros which comes with a chicken sandwich, salad and potato salad. Drinks run from 3 euros for a soda/small beer/water to around 10 for a cocktail, and hundreds for bottle service in VIP areas.
- Housing/Camping
- Unlike some major American festivals where nearly everyone is camping, only about 35,000 people camp here out of 180,000. This leads to a fairly major selection effect towards the young/low budget/low standards set. Nevertheless it can be fun if you are a heavy enough sleeper. There are also some pre-made/luxury (think african safari) campgrounds -- don't know anything about them.
- As mentioned, Dreamville camping is a decent walk from the festival site; the exit of the normal Dreamville is about 15 minutes walk from the entrance to the festival (at stage 13, which is on the opposite end from the main entrance, near stage 1). Nonetheless, it's still the most convenient option for anybody staying all weekend, by a lot. Unless you can get a place in Boom, below.
- If you're coming from out of town, the very best option would be to find somebody in Boom who is renting their apartment. It seems there are lots of these, maybe on airbnb. Alternatively if you really want the conveniences of home (ie, a hotel), look at Mechelen or Antwerp. Don't consider Brussels if you're staying for multiple festival days because transport stinks.
- All the hard talk about how strict ticket/bracelet checks are is overblown. There is no time to check IDs for 180,000 people. Many people (eg, me) didn't even get their bracelet in time; we just brought our receipt and they gave us ours, no questions, no activation, no ID check. To be safe, bring a photocopy of the passport/belgian ID of the registered purchaser. At entrances you simply scan the bracelet by the sensors after passing security (it's probably RFID). That said, there are a lot of scam artists on the internet trying to sucker people into wiring them money for nothing ("tickets"); there was even a fake, scam Tomorrowland website last year. If you're in the area anyway and really want to go, it's probably worth showing up at the main gate to try to find a day pass to buy.
- The stages are well decorated and have very impressive lighting and effects, this is one of the best things about this festival. Generally it is pretty creative for a very top-down festival and there are a few nice surprises. People are from really all over the world and very enthusiastic, which is fun.
- For me, some electronic music is really great, but it often fails impress. Unfortunately I didn't know the artists well enough in advance to know what I really wanted to see and I found that many stages, a very heavy baseline substituted for what could be called "music". Later I realized, when I heard songs I recognized, that the bass was up so high that you simply couldn't hear the melody even when the songs were good and had interesting overtones beyond the bass. In other words, the sound balance was in general very poor, to the detriment of my and others I talked to's enjoyment.
- Smaller stages both had better sound balance and often more interesting music, plus lots more space to dance. I found myself there more often and if I were to go back, I'd do more of that. Then again, I'm not into commercial electronic music in general so mostly the main stage is for the spectacle (although there may be some better artists there during the daytime).
Hope this helps somebody! Feel free to leave comments if you have more to add.
