Business News Gigs & Festivals Live Business

SFX’s TomorrowWorld cancelled for 2016

By | Published on Thursday 3 March 2016

TomorrowWorld

Bad news for fans of EDM, rain, traffic chaos and sleeping in bushes, US dance music festival TomorrowWorld is not happening this year. Which possibly puts the kibosh on my plan to launch a UK version that mainly consisted of wearing 1980s-style leather jackets, talking about science, and discussing how CDs definitely can’t be scratched.

TomorrowWorld was the US version of European EDM festival Tomorrowland, and was set up by SFX after it took a stake in Dutch promoter ID&T, which at the time had a 50% stake in the Belgian event. Last year’s edition of TomorrowWorld was plagued by bad weather, which resulted in all sorts of logistical problems, earning parent company SFX, then well on its way to bankruptcy, yet more bad press.

After SFX applied for bankruptcy protection last month, the owners of Tomorrowland – who took back complete control of their event after SFX bought into ID&T, but which continued to work with its former business partners on the international spin-offs of their festival – raised doubts about whether TomorrowWorld would return this year.

Tomorrowland bosses confirmed that their main Belgian festival, being wholly independent of SFX, would be unaffected by the bankruptcy, and that the Brazil version of the event – which is SFX-led – would also go ahead. As for the US edition, they said at the time, “in light of the present situation, no concrete plans have yet been made for TomorrowWorld 2016”.

Concrete plans have now been made, however, they being concrete plans to have no plans. A post on the festival’s Facebook page yesterday confirmed that “it’s with a heavy heart that we inform you TomorrowWorld will not take place in 2016”.

The post went on: “Unfortunately in the current environment, it is not possible to give you the best and unique experience you deserve. We will miss seeing each other in September and experiencing the magic of TomorrowWorld as one. You, the people of tomorrow, the foundation of TomorrowWorld, are our inspiration. Let’s lock and cherish all the magnificent memories in our hearts, this is not farewell”.

Which I think is them promising that TomorrowWorld will return in a future year. We’ll see I guess. But do enjoy locking those cherished memories, won’t you?



READ MORE ABOUT: |