Your insider guide to Dreamville Tomorrowland

I’m back from a weekend at Tomorrowland and this place is everything that they say it is! If you’re camping at Dreamville, you will find all the basic information that you need on their official website – http://www.tomorrowland.com/en/dreamville/faq/faq-dreamville. There is only so much they tell you though, here is a little sneak peak into what Dreamville is actually all about. 

Before starting anything, let me reiterate what you’ve probably heard a million times before – be careful where you get your tickets from! Trust me, it’s not worth it regardless of how badly you want to attend Tomorrowland.  Our neighbour in Dreamville had paid $1000 for his fake ticket only to have to buy a new one (because the staff were nice enough to let him do so).

I can 100% confirm that Viagogo is a valid website to buy from and we experienced no problems booking through them. They will not provide you with much information along the way but you can trust them to sort out the names on the tickets and the pick-up at Dreamville etc.

Don’t forget to bring a matching ID to your ticket or you won’t get in. On the website there is a long list of restricted items and whilst I don’t encourage you to bring any of the forbidden items, you don’t need to stress about it too much. On the contrary, the security when entering the actual festival is very strict, good luck trying to even get a plastic bottle of water in.

Inside the camping and festival area you can’t buy food and drinks with cash. Tomorrowland has it’s own currency, with machines similar to ATMs where you can exchange cash to tokens or use your bank card. Half a token is worth €1.

Now let’s get to the Dreamville part, starting with the layout.

You can camp on any district apart from the purple which is the Friendship Zone, the area for larger groups, unless you hold that kind of ticket. Coming from the entrance 3 parking you may want to settle for the zones further away from the Tomorrowland entrance (i.e entrance 1) as you will have a lot to carry. Therefore, if you’re ok with staying further away, I wouldn’t stress too much about the arrival time. Getting there by 4 will still get you a decent spot.

Be aware that to get across Dreamville will take you around 15 minutes and it takes another 15 minutes to the actual festival. If you want to stay closer to the action, I suggest coming early in the morning via entrance 1.

On the first night, the gathering party doesn’t fully kick off until around 8, so again, don’t stress if you didn’t make it early in the morning. The party went on full blast and finished at 1AM sharp, the official part anyway.

Not only are the blue and green districts closer to the entrance of Tomorrowland, they are closer to the hub of Dreamville. I’m talking about the food stands, the gathering stage and most importantly the yellow district. In the yellow district you literally find everything you need from a supermarket, butcher, barber, shisha cafe, food stands, bakery to a WiFi spot and phone charging point. They charge you a deposit of 7 tokens (€14) for a portable power adapter which can be replaced everyday. The WiFi is free but only last for 30 minutes per session and due to the amount of people using it, it’s not the fastest.

In the supermarket you can find things like flip-flops, hygienic products, disposable BBQs and even sleeping bags so don’t panic if you forgot something, they already thought of it for you! The only thing that was lacking there was ice and alcohol. There is a liquor store about 2 km down the road apparently which sells alcohol for very cheap so you can stock up. Note that if your car leaves the parking lot, you must pay again to re-enter.

The most surprising thing for me was that the prices inside Dreamville were very reasonable considering that’s the only option that you have. The ready-made food and drinks are not as cheap on the other hand. The food cost around 4-5 tokens. Drinks like water, Coca Cola and Red Bull were 1.5 tokens, going up to 5 for alcoholic drinks.

Showers cost 1.5 tokens (€3) each time, shampoo is provided and they are surprisingly clean. When I say clean, I mean cleaner than what I had imagined so do still bring flip flops. High maintenance ladies, you can plug hairdryers and straighteners in here. Due to the ratio, the queue for the guys’ showers was much longer than the one for the ladies.

The toilets were cleaned at random times during the day so you can’t really time a clean toilet break. They are cleaned twice per day but with the amount of people there, more frequently would have been nice. At the festival site though, toilets can be flushed, phew! No need to see a whole day’s worth of business when you walk in. All I have to say for both sides is bring soap! Do not count on any being available so if you’re OCD like me, keep one in your bag. Also bring wipes, and tons of them.

The party at Dreamville is 24/7, don’t expect to get any beauty sleep. The festival finishes at 1AM every night but Dreamville never sleeps. If you’re not a part of the late night party crew it is very useful to bring earplugs. If you ask me, it’s really important that you make time for sleep once the festival ends each day if you want to keep going for all 3 days!

Last but not least – water, water and more water! You will not last without it. This may sound obvious but if you’ve experienced the festival before then you’ll know what I mean. Use the refresh points around the festival and the camping site, bottles of water cost €3 each and they are tiny. Buy one and keep refilling them.

I’m very impressed with how well organised the whole event was and will most definitely recommend it to anyone. I cannot stress enough how much time and effort was put into making  Tomorrowland the incredible festival that it is. If I’ve missed any important points or if you have more questions, just drop it in the box below and I will answer.