During the next seven days, the Belgian town of Boom will be overtaken by ravers from all corners of the globe for the next chapter in Tomorrowland's journey.
Tickets for the event sold out in a matter of seconds, making it pretty easy to understand why the festival is marching to the summit of the European scene. Recap videos from the 2011 and 2012 editions have already received a collective 150 million Youtube hits.
Only in its ninth year, organisers have put in some hard yards to create the Tomorrowland brand, with highly creative and innovative stages, imaginative decoration and utterly jaw-dropping, cutting edge effects. A sister festival, TomorrowWorld in Atlanta, USA, has now been set up to try and deal with the demand from the North American contingent.
Even the festival's DreamVille camping site – with its bakeries and on-site butcher - is more than just your average tent and portaloo type of arrangement, and Tomorrowland is also quickly becoming a festival that major acts are drawn to. In 2013, that's the case again.
Trance gods Tiesto and Armin van Buuren are headlining the main stage on Friday and Saturday respectively, the theme of which is still under wraps. Last year, the main stage was one of the the largest and heaviest ever created for a festival and included huge LED screens, pyrotechnics, fireworks and enough lasers to guard Fort Knox. Expect a lot of hands-in-the-air moments and euphoria as these two trance juggernauts take to the stage.
Elsewhere, all three members of the Swedish House Mafia will turn out. Their headline set was one for the record books on lasts year's main stage, but with the super group now effectively in retirement, Steve Angello, Axwell and Sabastian Ingrosso will be playing separately throughout the weekend.
Steve Aoki is also back again this year, playing the main stage as well as overseeing his label's Dim Mak stage. Expect hard, pounding tunes and high BPM when Aoki is around, while Afrojack, Nervo, Dimitri Vegas and Like Mike are also be on the bill.
Although the weather is forecast to produce some severe storms after the recent heat wave, Boom, (located between Brussels and Antwerp) and its 180,000 revellers, 400 artists and five stages, and will undoubtedly be bouncing all weekend.
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