Universal Music, Tomorrowland Global Partnership

One of the world’s biggest music festivals, Tomorrowland has been held annually in Boom, Belgium since 2005. Over two weekends, more than 400,000 people from 200 countries visit the festival, which sells out in minutes each year. Tomorrowland has grown into a global music and lifestyle brand, with its new festival Tomorrowland Winter in the French Alps, its own fashion label TML by Tomorrowland and the radio station One World Radio. Whilst the global pandemic has meant that the Tomorrowland festival was cancelled in 2020 & 2021, the brand has continued to expand its global reach and influence, alongside a series of digital festivals and events that brought music into homes during the global lockdown.

Through this bespoke and innovative label partnership, Tomorrowland will enjoy direct access to a collective pool of UMG’s most successful international label divisions, creating greater flexibility to deliver global hits. The partnership will be led in Berlin by Alexander Neipp, Daniel Schmidt and Magnus Textor (Virgin Records) and Tina Adams (Virgin Music Label & Artist Services). The first release under the new label will be from Never Sleeps, a new project from Afrojack ft. Chico Rose, with the track ‘You Got The Love’ available on all platforms worldwide on August 27.

In making the announcement, Michiel Beers, CEO and founder of Tomorrowland said, “Creativity is something that can’t be stopped @ Tomorrowland. I’m very proud of how resilient our team was to find new ways of bringing Tomorrowland into the reality of the last period. We have taken the extra time to focus on projects that were on our list for a long time and one of them was definitely launching our own Tomorrowland Music label.

Michel Van Buyten, Music Manager Tomorrowland, Tomorrowland Music will work closely together with artists to help create strong stories around their releases. With the combined forces of our dedicated label team, Tomorrowland’s broader Media House, and the different Virgin Music teams worldwide, our aim is to introduce fans in every corner of the world to the most exciting projects in electronic music.”

Frank Briegmann, Chairman & CEO, Universal Music Central Europe & Deutsche Grammophon said, “Over the past 15 years Tomorrowland has built a reputation as one of the world’s leading festivals and electronic music brands by consistently expanding and evolving their relationship with music fans. Today, Tomorrowland is one of Europe’s most innovative music brands, respected by artists and loved by the millions of people who have attended their events around the world. We are delighted to have partnered with them to support the launch of their new label venture and to have created a uniquely flexible model utilizing our expert and proven teams at Virgin Records Germany, Virgin Music Label & Artist Services teams around the world and other flagship UMG labels worldwide to help drive success and create global hits for Tomorrowland. We look forward to a very successful partnership together, and to further enhancing our ability to provide partners, labels and artists with new and innovative ways to achieve global success.”

Magnus Textor, Head of A&R, Virgin Records Germany said, “Joining forces with Tomorrowland Music feels like love at first sight. It’s great to see that we sharing the same passion for electronic music & artists. Everyone who has ever been to Tomorrowland or even just seen one of their event films has experienced their dedication. Therefore, I’m confident the new label is going to be a special place and a great home for artists.”

In recent years, Virgin Records Germany has become the leading electronic label in Germany, whilst achieving significant international success in signing, releasing and marketing dance and electronic artists and hits. Recent worldwide hits include releases from Topic & A7S (Breaking Me & Your Love (9pm) together with ATB), MEDUZA (Piece Of Your Heart, Lose Control, Paradise) and twocolors (Lovefool).

Virgin Music Label & Artist Services is a network of regional hubs strategically positioned in the world’s leading music markets that delivers premium artist and label services to the industry’s most dynamic entrepreneurs and independent talent. Founded on the spirit and ethos of the Virgin brand, long synonymous with disruptive innovation and musical creativity, Virgin Music Label & Artists Services provides artists and labels with global and regional solutions and resources from fully staffed operations across major music markets. Since its launch earlier this year Virgin Music Label & Artist Services has opened divisions in the U.S., Japan, U.K., Germany and Central Europe, France, Australia & New Zealand, Sweden, Mexico, Brazil and across Latin America and Iberia, with further markets to launch in the coming months.

The flexibility of the partnership means that future projects can be aligned with other labels within the UMG global family to further expand the footprint for Tomorrowland and its artist projects around the world. In the U.S., Astralwerks will help expand the reach and awareness of future Tomorrowland projects and artists. Astralwerks is a modern, artist-first label and the #1 market share leader for dance/electronic music in the U.S. Combining a scalable, independent and global-thinking ethos with the ability to tap into the resources of a major label has enabled Astralwerks to sign such artists as ILLENIUM, Jonas Blue, Alison Wonderland, EDEN, ZHU and Alesso. As a testament to its pioneering approach, Astralwerks has amassed 30 GRAMMY® nominations, taken home six GRAMMY Awards and had historic releases from the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Swedish House Mafia, Halsey, Porter Robinson, Phoenix, Eric Prydz, Fatboy Slim and many others. The label has also released such massive singles as the 6x Platinum “Happier” by Marshmello + Bastille and FISHER’s “Losing It.”

Never Sleeps (Afrojack ft. Chico Rose) – You Got The Love will be available across all platforms from August 27.