- To support future releases and projects, Tomorrowland Music will collaborate with Virgin Records Germany and Virgin Music Label & Artist Services around the world.
- To deliver global hits, an innovative deal allows multiple label divisions within the world’s leading music company to provide flexibility and support.
Tomorrowland, a leading global festival brand and electronic music company, and Universal Music Germany, a division of Universal Music Group (UMG), the world leader in music-based entertainment, have today announced an exclusive global partnership that will see future Tomorrowland releases and artists, from their newly established label, distributed worldwide through a unique label network within UMG. Tomorrowland will collaborate with Virgin Records Germany, with global distribution provided by Virgin Music Label & Artist Services, to ensure that they have access to market-leading resources and expert label teams in order to expand their global audience.
Tomorrowland, from an electronic music festival to a 360° music institution
Since 2005, Tomorrowland, one of the world’s largest music festivals, has been held annually in Boom, Belgium. Over 400,000 people from 200 countries attend the festival over two weekends, which sells out in minutes every year. With its new festival Tomorrowland Winter in the French Alps, its own fashion label TML by Tomorrowland, and the radio station One World Radio, Tomorrowland has grown into a global music and lifestyle brand. While the Tomorrowland festival was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the global pandemic, the brand has continued to expand its global reach and influence through a series of digital festivals and events that brought music into people’s homes during the global lockdown.
Tomorrowland will have direct access to a collective pool of UMG’s most successful international label divisions as a result of this bespoke and innovative label partnership, giving them greater flexibility in delivering global hits. Alexander Neipp, Daniel Schmidt, and Magnus Textor (Virgin Records) and Tina Adams (Virgin Records) will lead the partnership in Berlin (Virgin Music Label & Artist Services). Never Sleeps, a new project from Afrojack ft. Chico Rose, will be the label’s first release, with the track “You Got The Love” available on all platforms worldwide on August 27.
Reactions and comments about the partnership
Creativity is something that can’t be stopped at 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. – Michiel Beers, CEO and founder of 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. – Michel Van Buyten, Music Manager Tomorrowland
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. – Frank Briegmann, Chairman & CEO, Universal Music Central Europe & Deutsche Grammophon
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. – Magnus Textor, Head of A&R, Virgin Records Germany
The tasks of UMG, Virgin Records and Astralwerks
Virgin Records Germany has recently risen to become Germany’s leading electronic label, with 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 global network of regional hubs that provide premium artist and label services to the industry’s most dynamic entrepreneurs and independent talent. Virgin Music Label & Artists Services was founded on the spirit and ethos of the Virgin brand, which has long been associated with disruptive innovation and musical creativity. It provides artists and labels with global and regional solutions and resources from fully staffed operations in 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 and New Zealand, Sweden, Mexico, Brazil, and Latin America as a whole, as well as Iberia, are among the markets that will be launched in the coming months.
Because of the partnership’s flexibility, future projects can be aligned with other labels in the UMG global family to further expand Tomorrowland’s and its artist projects’ global footprint. Astralwerks will assist future Tomorrowland projects and artists in expanding their reach and awareness in the United States. Astralwerks is a cutting-edge, artist-focused label with the largest market share in dance/electronic music in the United States. Astralwerks has signed artists like ILLENIUM, Jonas Blue, Alison Wonderland, EDEN, ZHU, and Alesso by combining a scalable, independent, and global-thinking ethos with the ability to tap into the resources of a major label. 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 massive singles like Marshmello + Bastille’s 6x Platinum “Happier” and FISHER’s “Losing It.”
From August 27, Never Sleeps (Afrojack ft. Chico Rose) – You Got The Love will be available on all platforms.
Tomorrowland Music, a dedicated music division within @tomorrowland. Collaborating closely with both artists and labels, supporting them in all their recording and release activities. Prepare for a first, massive release tomorrow… Tomorrowland Music – Your Record Label. pic.twitter.com/q7W8OQHHSp
— Tomorrowland Music (@TML_musiclabel) August 26, 2021
