We have been relating the festivals for years (or at least until one or two ago) with the summer time. We were looking forward to June so that we could attend the festivals that most interested us in the heat of the heat wave.
This has changed. A new generation of festivals has been born y Tomorrowland Winter it claims to be at the forefront of all of them. You will go from wearing comfortable shoes, shorts, and a T-shirt (and not even wearing it) to some boots, snow pants, a thermal and a good waterproof coat. From seeing nothing with the sun, to seeing it with an impressive snowfall. To live a different experience than what we have been used to for years, combining skiing with your favorite music.
Tomorrowland Winter was amazing, and We are going to explain the steps to follow to assist in the coming years.
First step, buy the Tickets, Which it is only possible to purchase them with accommodation. You will be able to choose between the 4-day package and the 7-day package. 4 days starts at € 685 / person y the most economical package of 7 days costs € 825 / person. The difference between the two is that with the 4-day one you will only be able to attend the Welcome and the festival itself, while with the 7-day one you will be able to attend the 3 previous days.
In this first edition, the organization allowed you to stay in 4 towns. Huez, where the festival took place, Oz, Vaujany and Auris.
Our recommendation is get tickets with accommodation in Huez, since due to the heavy snowfall power moving between the towns is quite complicated because of how the roads are, since the chair lifts are only active for part of the day.
You should bear in mind that there are 4 types of accommodation: Wood, Bronze, Silver and Gold. The higher the standard, the better the accommodation. In our opinion, no need for more Wood or Bronze, since most of the day you will be skiing or at the festival. You may only step on it to sleep and to put down your skis.
A detail, in the absence of a few days, was granted to all attendees a gift: a gift backpack according to the town you are in with various details of the festival inside (if you are in Huez, the rope backpack of the event would correspond to you and if you are in the surrounding towns a traditional backpack with the Tomorrowland logo) and a one-day ticket to enjoy the gym, the ice rink and the pool, all located in the Huez activity center.
In case of buying them with vuelo, It's the closest thing to a Tomorrowland Global Journey. You will have direct flights or buses from which to go to the festival from different cities. Of course, these types of tickets will be higher than those that only include accommodation.
Regarding the tickets without a flight, you will have to manage on your own the way to get to your accommodation. You can fly to Lyon or Grenoble and from there purchase a pass for a shuttle that the festival itself offers from the cities closest to the event. OR Directly, if you live in the north or center of Spain, go by car. Keep in mind that it is a long trip and in which you will carry many belongings, including skis, boots and all the luggage, including a board if someone uses it, so you will need a car with a fairly large trunk.
Also, if you have the opportunity to go the day before, the best option is to spend the night in a nearby town where you are going to be during these 7 days, so that you avoid all the traffic jams that can form on the first day of entry.
As in Tomorrowland Belgium, the chest will arrive in the mail with the ticket in it weeks before the festival. With the dispatch number you will be able to see in Bpost which day it arrives and with the Bpost number, you will see it in the Post Office the same week of arrival. To activate the entry, you must look for the code on the back of the bracelet, and activate it through My Tomorrowland. In fact, the festival also works with pearls. In order to obtain these pearls, you must change them on the same page, in the section Cashless and Pop Up that appears next to the activation panel of the bracelet. In this edition the pearl is at € 2,15, quite more expensive compared to Belgium.
Tickets include a pass for the 7 days of the festival. All accesses to the slopes, like the festival, will have winches with which, through your bracelet, you can enter the slopes and enjoy a day of skiing. If you do not have equipment, you can rent from the same page all the necessary material to be able to ski. If not, you can also rent it in small shops in town.
If you are going to ski for the first time, or want to improve your technique a little more, Tomorrowland makes several ski packages available to attendees, through the ESF, a company which is dedicated to teaching. You can attend one day, three, and even every day of the festival, through group or private classes, with 4 levels with each one greater difficulty, even at different times. The cheapest, obviously, are group classes. We were in a group every day of the festival (it cost € 185) from 9:30 to 12:00, in order to be on the slopes before the main concerts in the area that encompasses the entire Mainstage. What's more, You will have lockers in Huez, right next to the information point outside the festival, to be able to leave all your ski equipment. In this way, you will not have to go through the accommodation and you can collect everything at the end of the night.
Later, in addition to ski lessons, you can also purchase the packages that include all activities to do in the snow, such as restoration. You will have suitable areas to be able to move around in a dogsled, do very mountaineering, travel the mountain and even practice extreme sports.
Let's talk about to the bank. You will not have any problem if you reside in Huez. The problem comes if you are in the surrounding towns. From early in the morning, until 6 in the afternoon (the closing time of the slopes varies a bit, depending on the weather) you can move through the chair lifts throughout the Tomorrowland Winter venue, both towns and track stages. From that time you will have the option of shuttles, which will be from the closing of the ski lifts until half an hour after the closing of the festival. You will have to leave the festival as quickly as possible to catch the last shuttles to leave, since you only have half an hour to spare.
In case of having made the trip by car, you can go and return in it except the last 3 days of the festival which is not allowed, but you should be careful with the roads. The shortest way is one lane and with very sharp curves. It is also important (rather mandatory) to wear chains, since if you do not take them, it is very possible that you will be left in the middle of the road due to the impossibility of climbing.
Regarding the transit through chairliftsThrough the map that the organization shares, you can organize yourself in a very simple way. In black, and with small chair lift iconsIt is the route that you can follow without having to ski and in 4 other colors, the skiable areas according to the level of difficulty. From green, which is the easiest, to black, which is the most difficult. One of our recommendations is always keep a map of the festival handy to be able to orient yourself on tracks. It has no loss since at each entrance to a chairlift it indicates which area you are going to, but it may be that due to storms (perhaps the biggest problem of the festival) the visibility is zero and you do not even see where you are.
After managing the tickets, accommodation and transport both from our place of residence and between the area that includes Tomorrowland Winter, we are going to talk about what we should take to such a festival.
To ski, avoiding skis, poles, helmet and glasses, it is necessary to wear warm clothing that is waterproof. Boots and gloves included. The temperatures are very low, and even as you will have observed in the chronicle on our Instagram, snowfalls were frequent and at some point it seemed like you were going through a blizzard. Do not forget some thick socks (and even wear a double sock) and thermal underwear, whether they are tights or T-shirts. Do not forget also the sun cream, you could burn your face while skiing.
As for how to bundle up to go to the festival, we recommend the pre-festival days go as comfortable as possible and without excessive layers, since all the stages are covered and close at 8 in the afternoon. The only cold moment will be going from one stage to another or waiting for the shuttle. That is it is essential to always wear waterproof boots at least the last 3 days, since the festival floor is covered with snow and with the passage of time puddles form around the entire venue.
We go with the basic needs such as eating, hydrating or washing both inside and outside the festival.
Outside the festival, in each of the towns, we will have small supermarkets where you can buy everything you need for the weekend. Yes, for this week prices rise and maybe what you can buy in Spain, here be double or triple. Therefore, if you make the trip by car, we recommend buying everything you need and non-perishable at the place of departure, since it is a fairly high saving.
Inside the festivalWe have a lot of stands around all the stages, even the ones that are located on the slopes, which we will talk about later. In the event of a storm, You can take refuge inside the Orangerie or the Garden of Madness, where you will have food and drink stalls in the covered area. Also, if you are a beer lover, don't miss the Moose bar, Where are the lowest festival prices and which ended up overflowing every day. Of course, as we mentioned earlier, the pearl to change is € 2,15 and it is quite a bit more expensive than in Tomorrowland Belgium. Through the packages that you can find on the web, you can book in several of the restaurants that make up Taste of the World. Yes, don't expect to find the Embers (perhaps the best known), which is, but cannot be reserved since they only serve combined dishes in a bowl.
To be able to clean up, next to the Mainstage, you will find a giant tent where the toilets are located. There are an immense number of portable toilets so you should not have to queue at any time.
We will divide the festival into 3 parts: pre-festival, welcome and festival. Let's say the First 3 days is a kind of warm-up for the last 3 days. Performances on the slopes begin at 12 and last until 5, the same as at the Orangerie, only it closes at 8.
To access the stages on tracks like the Love or AmicorumYou will first have to pass a security lathe that overlooks the restaurant and through it you will go to the stage. We could call the scenarios simple, but being at a certain altitude and snowing much of the time, causes a different feeling than what you will find in another festival. You are at 2300 meters, surrounded by many people, snowing and maybe what is more than 10-20 meters away you won't even see it. Is incredible. It's like being in nowhere and listening to your favorite music. In it we enjoy Lost Frequencies, Netsky and Joris Voorn B2B Kolsch.
As to tabulate, it is the most accessible since it is 15 minutes from the Mainstage venue, so it is not necessary to use the chairlift, nor will you have to validate to enter since it does not have a restaurant. Through him they passed Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Dj Ward, Mandy and Da Tweekaz. Unlike the Top of the Mountain, located at 3300 meters at Pic Blanc (the highest stage) to which you will have to go up and down by chairlift and that Only the most experienced skiers can go down the slopes, since it is the most difficult section to ski. On it, there was no poster, so you could find any surprises.
To finish, we have Signal as well as the Hut, more oriented as a restaurant than as a stage. Even the Cabane is not accessible by chair lift, so you will have to go and go back skiing to be able to enter. Of course, less difficult than the Top of the Mountain, as it is on a red track.
Let's talk about festival site in Huez. Known for Main Festival Area, the first 3 days you will only be able to access the Orangerie, since the other stages are closed until Welcome. We can speak of it as the newest setting, since we had not seen it in any other festival. A huge tent, very decorated inside like a chapel, with the lower part of the stage decorated with flowers and referring to nature. In it, we enjoy Bassjackers, Regi B2B Yves V, Da Tweekaz, Afrojack, Reygel & Peri and already, in the middle of the festival, Netsky, Timmy Trumpet, Kungs, Armin van Buuren, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and the hosts of I Love the 90's and Q-Dance.
For the Welcome, new scenarios begin to open up. The one that becomes important is the Garden of Madness, since it will be carried out the welcome party. Using the same elements as the Garden of Madness stage for the Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike events in Belgium, it is within an enclosure more than similar to the Freedom Stage in Tomorrowland, in which the butterflies placed throughout the enclosure act as go up and down throughout the event. Yves V, Sunnery James & Ryan Marciano and Armin van Buuren, the latter as amazing surprise, they acted on it. To put a but, we expected another type of confirmation, since Armin does not usually miss any event and had already performed at the festival.
If you reside in Oz, Auris and Vaujany, you have your own welcome party next to the information point, and even (very good for the organization) before the start of the main in HuezSo you could attend both parties without missing one.
We will close this guide with the differentiating element of Tomorrowland: its main stage. I can assure you that 70-80% of those attending this festival, we did not expect such a Mainstage. It was a nice surprise.
Smaller than his older Belgian brother is accustomed to, but with much more pyrotechnics and with a clear nod to the scenarios of the past with the hologram of the already famous face in the center of the stage.
Open for the last 3 days, had a peculiarity: would never close the festival. We imagine that due to the heavy rainfall, it was decided to have the main stage open during the hottest hours and close in covered stages. For him, it happened Armin van Buuren, Afrojack, Vini Vici (undoubtedly the festival set), Lost Frequencies, Dj Snake, Martin Garrix… An endless number of first-rate names.
The stage would also open Eden, composed of the Rose Garden cabin (the famous dragon of Tomorrowland Belgium), and located halfway between the Orangerie and the Mainstage, where it would pass Solardo, Nico Morano and Kostantin Sibold among others.
As was predictable, time did not accompany, but a scenario like this was only missing a storm like the one that occurred in the first 2 days of the festival. He gave that part of realism to the stage to make it even more magical. It is hard, since at some point you get to reach -9º, in addition to being in the middle of a storm that makes the thermal sensation even lower. You feel your feet and hands freeze, but you're still there. The music engages, you dance and even at some point you choose to take off your gloves and immortalize the moment to have a memory.
Without any doubt, a brutal experience. Completely change the way you see festivals. From being in Boom at about 35º, to being in The Alps at -9º. Different climate, Same goal: to enjoy electronic music. Get up day by day, look out the window, and just see mountains. Breathe tranquility and clean air. In addition to being a perfect place to hold a festival, it is also a perfect place to disconnect. Tomorrowland Winter was above expectations, surprised for good and confirmed that skiing and music are compatible in such an event.
Take the opportunity! We would have loved to be at other festivals of the same organization as Tomorrowland Brasil or TomorrowWorld, but they stayed on the way. Perhaps one day they will return or not, but it sure was a great experience for those who enjoyed it and will not forget it. What we do know is that Tomorrowland Winter will be held again next year, and as Tomorrowland says: "This is your life, make it legendary". Never be left with the desire!
