Four Tomorrowlands in, and this is the first I’ll be writing without a single hour there. I usually go on all my monsoons, so what gives?
Not for lack of wanting: Right as 40+ of my monsooners were checking if they had passports and packing whatever the group email had recommended them to pack, I was in a hospital room in Queens, meeting my daughters earlier than any of us had planned. They picked their own departure date, and it happened to land on top of Tomorrowland’s.
So this year’s blogpost comes to you secondhand: pieced together from a group chat that kept me feeling like I was there with me, and from every photo 40+ different people thought to send back to the dude who’s usually always in the area. I organized most of this trip from a hospital room, one eye on my phone and another on two tiny humans. And the weirdest part is that all of it felt familiar as if they were old habits, apparently, even during a week that didn’t feel old or habitual in any other way.
It started, like it always does, with boxes at my doorstep. Lots of boxes.
At my doorstep were a potpourri of randomized bracelets, welcome packets, easter eggs, treasure boxes, etc. etc. all needing a name, parent, and a home. I opened each of these boxes and match 40 names to 40 boxes, assigning one post-it at a time.
And one day in June, I hosted an orientation at my place for everyone to meet and pick up their treasure boxes, while mailing out the rest (with very good shipping insurance). By the time they booked actual boarding passes, the group were already transforming from strangers into travel companions.
Yesi came with me last year as Nisha’s plus-one and clearly decided the trip needed her own plus-one, so this year she brought Adda along for the ride. This is how our whole community thing grows; someone has a good enough time that they can’t not bring somebody next time.
Same story, different pair: Cassidy was here with me last year too as Mimi’s plus-one, and showed up this time with his friend Matt.
By the time these four made it to their hotel in Brussels, they became a pod with half the group already stumbling upon each other through some combination of past trips, mutual friends, and whatever this magnetism that manifests when many well traveled people are put together in one group chat months in advance.
I’ve walked through Tomorrowland’s front gate 3 times now, and I can still feel it out an entire ocean away: the bag check, the metal detectors, the wristband scan, that anticipation of seeing where the music’s coming from.
A few gates down, I had a completely different constellation of my squad having the exact same moment as the pod. Cynthia’s one of the very first monsooners I ever brought anywhere, back in 2011. And this year she showed up with her husband Valentino and a small army of friends I’d never met, until Tomorrowland made them mine too.
Many separate friend groups, none of whom know each other at all, all converging on the same gate on the same day because at some point, years apart, they each said yes to this random guy’s idea of sharing a good time.
And then there’s Keseena and Dominic, dressed to the nines for a music festival like it was still their wedding, which it kinda was because they decided Tomorrowland would be their honeymoon.
5 months ago a few monsooners and I were standing in an ice chapel in Lapland watching them get married. Now here they are again, this time with a lot more glitter in a lot less snow. If you want proof ours trips turn into actual relationships that outlast the itinerary, this is it.
Then the main stage where Jona, Jan, Eric, Penina, Sujay, and a dozen more faces I recognize from a half dozen different trips over a half dozen different years, all standing in front of the main act on a trip I wouldn’t be able to make. I used to want to believe I could be a connective tissue holding all of this together.
This photo ends up being good evidence I might have just be at least a convenient excuse everybody needed to meet one another.
They made the rounds the way you’re supposed to: Main Stage for the scale of it after last year’s burned down . . .
. . . and The Great Library stage for the ones who wanted a little more intimacy.
While all of that was happening on the ground, I was also running point on the add-ons Tomorrowland offers to enhance its experience. And getting over 31 people into the Tomorrowland Restaurant, the almost impossible to book, Michelin-adjacent dinner overlooking Main Stage, is its own separate logistics puzzle every year, arguably harder than getting the festival tickets themselves for 40 people.
Ensuring everyone who wanted something got whatever they wanted, I made sure Val and Cynthia’s got their group of 10, my potpourri of 9 friends consisting of 3 different groups got theirs, and . . .
. . . Yesi and Adda got a table there too at the last minute (I’ll let it pass that you lapsed on the group chat haha!), which means that view made it into 3 completely different friend groups’ photo albums this year.
I’ll take it as a sign my Tomorrowland hunting instincts are still sharp, hospital room or not.
And Brasa, Tomorrowland’s BBQ joint got its usual crowd too. This time I got a table for Amanda, Eric, Keseena, and Dominic enjoying the meat sweats I warned them about when I went 2 years ago.
I’ve organized a lot of trips from a lot of unusual places, but never from a hospital room, and never for a group I couldn’t picture myself joining even if I tried. Somewhere around day two, scrolling through photos of 40 people I love scattered across a festival I was once asked to consider by other ravers, I had a feeling come over me how community happens “when you build it and they will come;” the right group of people will trust each other enough to show up, whether or not the guy who started it all makes it there with them.
I missed my first Tomorrowland this year. I also met my identical twin daughters. I’d say that’s a fair trade.
Twins, you’ve got a lot of Post-it notes to live up to. See you all at the next one.
- At time of posting in Boom, Belgium, it was 23 °C - Humidity: 48% | Wind Speed: 16km/hr | Cloud Cover: hot and humid
