Neptunus builds accommodations at Tomorrowland

The Assignment

Tomorrowland is one of the world’s largest and most renowned electronic dance music festivals starring top DJ’s from around the world. The 2017 event, staged over two weekends during July in Boom, Belgium, attracted over 400,000 visitors and was the 13th edition of the high-octane electronic dance music festival which was originally launched in 2005.

For the 2017 edition Neptunus were challenged by organisers to come up with an ultra-new bespoke design that would form the centrepiece of the festival and provide a wondrous spectacle for the huge audiences.

play

video

The Solution
The event coincided with Neptunus’ 80th anniversary and the company’s creative design team were able to mark this historic landmark by providing Tomorrowland organisers with a dynamic new look by developing a spectacular circular building

The Neptunus Research and Development department is constantly working on developing new and existing products and introducing exciting new innovations, propelled by the demands of our customers.

For 2017, Tomorrowland wanted something new and something that had never been built before. The solution of the Neptunus team was a brilliant, completely rounded structure which made its debut at the high profile festival. Appropriately named Salacia after the female Roman divinity of the sea and wife of Neptune, it was specifically designed for Tomorrowland’s themed ‘Amicorum Spectaculum – Magic will happen’ – and was built on floating pontoons in the ‘Garden of Madness’ area of the event.

As a strikingly visual addition to the Evolution series of temporary structures, the building is multi-functional, offering a clear span of 30 metres that can be extended with a five-metre canopy. Its height is variable between 8 and 12 metres, and the structure can be open or closed in with walls or glass panels. The roof is hydraulically lifted into place allowing for fast construction. In addition Salacia can also be added, as a semicircle, to the existing Evolution structure range.

Elsewhere on the festival site, Neptunus built a Galeria Tripledecker structure to provide the Main Comfort VIP area. The 2,400 square metre hall was characterised by its three storeys and unique roof construction and gave visitors great views of the main stage. Finally, Neptunus built the LEAF area, a floating bar lounge with two pontoon lanes across to the banks.

The Challenges
As a completely new structure with its cutting-edge circular design, Neptunus carried out a dress rehearsal by erecting it at the company’s headquarters in Kessel, The Netherlands to give their technicians time to familiarise themselves with the intricacies of The Salacia. The actual site build was further complicated as The Salacia had to be constructed on pontoons in the Garden of Madness situated in a lake. Nevertheless, Neptunus’ 12-strong technical crew completed the build on schedule within a week while overcoming any unexpected technical challenges of the innovative new design. The team took a further week to construct all the other event structures around the site and just one week to dismantle and remove all equipment at the end of the festival.

The Verdict
Antoine Eilers, R&D Director of Neptunus, said: “We are working together with Tomorrowland for many years and for this years’ edition we came up with a bespoke solution to their requirement to make a large round overlay. It was important that the structure also had a reasonable amount of roof load. The Salacia meets these requirements perfectly.”