The festival's co-founder claims that a third weekend and reduced artist fees still won't be enough to make up for the previous two years' losses. BELGIAN BOOM It was originally going to be called Mysteryland when Michiel Beers and his brother Manu Beers set out to develop Belgium's first dedicated electronic music festival in 2005. Duncan Stutterheim, their business partner and the creator of the Dutch festival brand ID&T, called Michiel Beers to inform him that he had changed his mind and wanted to keep "Mysteryland" for the Netherlands. This was after the Beers had produced thousands of brochures and posters promoting the name. Another challenge soon followed: Tisto, the event's featured headliner and the most well-known DJ in the area, abruptly withdrew in favor of a pop-rock festival approximately a half-hour away. The festival is starting its second of a remarkable three-weekend run today (July 22), in an effort to make up some of the 25 million euros ($25.6 million) it lost from 2020–2021. Due to the lengthier festival, a record 600,000 attendees, including 10,000 more Americans than usual, are expected at Tomorrowland this year. On 16 stages, more than 800 performers will take the stage, including EDM heavyweights Martin Garrix, Marshmello, and Alok as well as techno titan Paul Kalkbrenner and deep house producer Lost Frequencies. Since last year, the festival's final two weekends have been completely booked. This year, they sold all 200,000 tickets for a third weekend (July 14–17) at a 5 percent higher price of 114.50 euros per day or 310 euros for the entire weekend, to assist offset the high inflation in Europe. However, Beers claims that this was an exceptional occurrence. Tomorrowland is held atop the De Schorre park, and the event negotiated a ten-point plan with the cities of Boom and Rumst, which includes returning to its customary two weekends beginning in 2019.