Over 1m fans pay to attend virtual Tomorrowland
More than one million paying customers attended Tomorrowland Around the World this weekend, over two-and-a-half times more fans than the in-person Belgian dance festival typically draws.
Viewers from the world over attended the pay-per-view virtual festival, which saw over 60 acts, including Katy Perry, Amelie Lens, David Guetta, Martin Garrix and Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike, perform across eight custom-designed stages on the island of Pāpiliōnem.
Weekend tickets for the event cost €20, with day tickets priced at €12.50.
Those who bought a weekend ticket can also revisit the island and rewatch all performances until Wednesday 29 July.
For those that missed out on the festival, separate €12.50 tickets are available to buy on the Tomorrowland website to gain access to the Relive platform, allowing fans to watch all the recorded sets until Wednesday 12 August, 5 p.m. CET.
A collaboration between the Tomorrowland team, creative agency Dogstudio, gaming giant Epic Games, augmented and virtual reality specialist stYpe and visualisation platform Depence, Tomorrowland Around the World – a project that would typically be two years in the making – was pulled together in just three months.
“For now, we leave this beautiful place we call Papilionem and treasure what we have experienced together”
Artists were filmed performing live in four specially designed studios in Belgium, Los Angeles, Sao Paolo and Sydney using 4K high-definition cameras. According to the Tomorrowland team, 300 terabytes – a measure of computer storage capacity equating to over 1,000 gigabytes, or a trillion bytes – of raw footage was recorded, which took multiple render engines around four weeks to process.
The virtual environment that was ultimately created for Tomorrowland Around the World was rendered at an ultra high quality, with ten times more polygons (the building blocks of 3D graphics) than the average video game.
“Our message has been sent into the furthest corners of the world,” reads a post from the Tomorrowland team. “It will travel around the globe until the time comes when we can unite once again.
“For now, we leave this beautiful place we call Pāpiliōnem and treasure what we have experienced together.”
The physical edition of Tomorrowland 2020 was called off in April, when the Belgian government joined others in Europe in extending its band on large-scale events throughout summer.
The event, which welcomes around 400,000 festivalgoers across two weekends to its site in Boom, Belgium, each year, was set to feature performances from Eric Prydz, David Guetta, Marshmello, Amelie Lens, Afrojack, Helena Hauff and Maceo Plex, among others.
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Intellitix acquires controlling stake in LOC
Access control/ticketing specialist Intellitix has acquired a controlling stake in Netherlands-based LOC Pay Systems.
LOC supplied 200 festivals and venues across Europe in 2016 with its token-based payment system and will continue to operate from its head office in Lochem, Netherlands. The firm’s 13 full time employees will remain under the management of CEO Roland Wassink.
Intellitix provides technology-driven solutions for music festivals and live events, and aims to bring Cashless RFID to 500 events in 2017, including LOC clients. LOC, which until 2015 was a division of LOC 7000, is its first acquisition.
“The acquisition of LOC Pay Systems aligns with our core belief that clients’ confidence to use new technology is centred around trust and proven track records.”
Serge Grimaux, Intellitix CEO (pictured, left), said: “There is a great synergy between our companies in our approach to delivering the best possible, practicable Access Control and Payment Systems to events. The acquisition of LOC Pay Systems aligns with our core belief that clients’ confidence to use new technology is centred around trust and proven track records.
“There is a fantastic team at LOC Pay Systems with a strong reputation based on multiple successes for their clients across the years. They will introduce our RFID technologies to an event or venue when appropriate. Where it can bring benefits to a client we know LOC Pay Systems advice will pave the path for the use of our technologies.”
Intellitix leader Roland Wassink (pictured, right) added: “Bringing Intellitix and LOC Pay Systems together makes us very unique for our mutual clients. We enjoy very close understanding of our clients’ requirements and their events, so being able to offer them a range of payment options from tokens to cashless RFID technology will be a great advantage to them.
“We have been researching RFID technology for several years, so we are very excited about being able to offer Intellitix’s proven technology not only for cashless but also for brand amplification and access control.”
“We have been researching RFID technology for several years, so we are very excited about being able to offer Intellitix’s proven technology not only for cashless but also for brand amplification and access control, with our staff project managing the implementation opportunities into Europe and beyond. This merger is a memorable moment in the history of payment solutions in our market and globally.”
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