Livestreams of the Tomorrowland electronic music festival on TikTok drew more than 74 million unique viewers across two weekends, setting a new record for livestreaming viewership on the platform.
The latest figure marks a 362.5% jump from the 16 million viewers who watched the same festival on TikTok in 2023, according to TikTok data.
During the festival’s two-week run last month, content tagged with #Tomorrowland accumulated 2.4 billion views, while the festival’s official TikTok account added 1.9 million new followers, taking its total to 9.2 million.
ByteDance-owned TikTok operated a 24-hour livestream from multiple stages at the Belgian festival, including the MainStage, Freedom Stage and OneWorldRadio.
The platform also hosted DJs and producers at a Content Studio at the venue. Artists who participated in TikTok’s Tomorrowland livestream gained a combined 3 million followers and generated 580 million video views, TikTok said.
The surge comes as electronic music is among the most popular genres on TikTok. Content tagged with #electronicmusic has now reached 36 billion views on the platform. TikTok is Tomorrowland’s year-long Official Content Partner.
Michael Kümmerle, Global Head of Music Partnership Development at TikTok, said: “Electronic music is one of the biggest genres on TikTok, and Tomorrowland is a truly unique experience that showcases electronic music in all its glory. Thanks to the resilience and hard work of the entire Tomorrowland team, this year’s festival rose from the ashes to create unforgettable moments that will be remembered forever.
“This holistic global partnership has taken Tomorrowland on TikTok to a new level, making it one of the strongest music accounts on the platform.”
Michael Kümmerle, TikTok
“This holistic global partnership has taken Tomorrowland on TikTok to a new level, making it one of the strongest music accounts on the platform, and creating incredible impact, engagement and value – both on- and off-platform – for the artists participating in and supporting this amazing campaign. We look forward to creating many more incredible experiences with Tomorrowland as their official content partner.”
The most-viewed artists during the livestreams included Charlotte de Witte, who performed twice on the MainStage in a single day, and Martin Garrix, who headlined both weekends’ closing sets. Alan Walker — who created his track, Heartbreak Melody, during a songwriting camp hosted by Tomorrowland and TikTok’s distribution and promotion service SoundOn — was also among the most-watched artists on TikTok livestreams.
As MBW reported in January, Walker tapped TikTok-owned SoundOn to release his highly fifth studio album Walkerworld 2.0, and partnered with TikTok for an exclusive in-app experience and a livestream performance.
Meanwhile, Walker’s Heartbreak Melody accumulated 4 million streams within two weeks of release and became the most-saved track through TikTok’s ‘Add to Music App’ feature among festival performers at Tomorrowland. Another track, Same Thing by Ely Oaks and LAVINIA, reached 1 million streams in its first week.
“It was great to combine some of the very best SoundOn artists, DJs and producers with some amazing, fresh talent that we were working with for the first time.”
Nichal Sethi, SoundOn
The songs were created during SoundOn and Tomorrowland Music’s songwriting camp held in Brussels in July. The camp paired songwriters and producers with “some of the world’s best artists and DJs” to create new and original tracks specifically written for the festival.
TikTok hinted that more songs from the songwriter camp will drop in the coming weeks, including one from Pegassi, which is slated to be released on August 15.
Nichal Sethi, Head of SoundOn EMEA, said: “At SoundOn we love to bring creative ideas to life in partnership with artists and the industry, which is why we were so excited to work with Tomorrowland Music to make the songwriter camp a reality. It was great to combine some of the very best SoundOn artists, DJs and producers with some amazing, fresh talent that we were working with for the first time. Hearing the tracks played from the MainStage for the first time was incredible and they are already breaking records both on and off the platform.”
The livestreaming success comes as TikTok continues to expand its livestreaming offering. Over a week ago, TikTok announced a partnership with iHeartRadio on a live streaming singing competition. The Next up: Live Music competition promises to give unsigned artists a platform to reach more audiences.
Over a month ago, TikTok rolled out a new feature called LIVE Fan Club as the platform disclosed that 130 million creators worldwide now broadcast LIVE content daily on the platform.
These services come amid the booming creator economy. The global live streaming market reached $38.87 billion in 2022 and is expected to hit around $256.56 billion by 2032, according to data from Custom Market Insights.
Beyond regular creators, TikTok has also hosted livestream events for artists. In February 2021, Justin Bieber performed a LIVE concert on TikTok, which marked the first ever single-artist, full-length concert performance to air LIVE on the platform.
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