Belgium's electronic music festival Tomorrowland has announced an alliance with Universal Music around a new label venture it has launched. It will work with Universal's Virgin Records in Germany and the Virgin Music teams around the world - the former being a frontline label, the latter being the major's label services business.
Tomorrowland founder Michiel Beers says that launching a label has been on the festival's to do list for years and that they finally found time to make it a reality when COVID impacted on the live events side of the business.
“I’m very proud of how resilient our team was to find new ways of bringing Tomorrowland into the reality of the last period", he explains. "We have taken the extra time to focus on projects that were on our list for a long time and one of them was definitely launching our own Tomorrowland Music label".
Head Of A&R at Virgin Records Germany, Magnus Textor, adds: “Joining forces with Tomorrowland Music feels like love at first sight. It’s great to see that we share the same passion for electronic music and artists. Everyone who has ever been to Tomorrowland, or even just seen one of their event films, has experienced their dedication. Therefore, I’m confident the new label is going to be a special place and a great home for artists".
The deal will also see Tomorrowland collaborating with other labels within the Universal Music empire, although that will be done on a release by release basis. That said, Astralwerks is already set to help expand the new label's presence in the US market.