Tomorrowland will advertise its upcoming virtual event, Tomorrowland Around the World, with the “world’s fastest flyer” – an ad on the side of a Formula 1 car – at this weekend’s Austrian grand prix.

Marking the first time a music festival has appeared on an F1 car, the Tomorrowland Around the World logo will appear on the McLaren MCL35M driven by Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo as part of a partnership with McLaren sponsor British American Tobacco (BAT), which will hand over its spot on the car for the race on 4 July.

While Tomorrowland, the world’s biggest dance music festival, has been forced to cancel its flagship physical event in Boom, Belgium, there will be a Tomorrowland festival this year in the form of the second edition of Tomorrowland: Around the World, a virtual festival with Armin van Buuren, Nicky Romero, Charlotte de Witte and other international DJs taking place place on 16 and 17 July. Over 1m people bought tickets for last year’s Around the World event.

The partnership with BAT will use the “global audiences of the grand prix to drive visibility to the digital festival” for both new and existing Tomorrowland fans, says BAT.

John Beasley, group head of brand building for BAT, comments: “McLaren is more than a partner in motorsport; we share a love of music and innovation, and this provides a never-before-seen opportunity to make a statement for our music-loving fans of motor racing and provid[e] much-needed support for the live music industry.

“We always want to help our partners and give back to the fans, and while Tomorrowland may not happen in person in 2021, together we have created the world’s fastest flyer for the greatest digital music festival.”

Tickets for Tomorrowland Around the World, which takes place in a virtual world on the “magical island” of Pāpiliōnem, are priced from €20.

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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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