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Tomorrowland Mainstage Fire Eyewitness Describes ‘Disbelief’ as Blaze Erupted

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A person who was present when the mainstage caught fire at Tomorrowland 2025 on Wednesday (July 16) describes the scene as one of “disbelief.”

Kay Soesbergen works for a company that does catering for festivals in the Netherlands and Belgium, where Tomorrowland happens in the town of Boom. He tells Billboard he was working in a vending area of the festival’s camping area, called DreamVille, when he saw someone filming in the direction of the mainstage, located across the site.

Tomorrowland 2025 Mainstage Destroyed by Fire Ahead of Festival

07/16/2025

“I looked [in that direction] and saw a really big [cloud] of smoke coming from the festival area,” Soesbergen tells Billboard. “That’s kind of when we were like, ‘Okay, something is wrong.’ But then the fireworks start going off, and then we knew it was really wrong. Then I got a call from one of my supervisors who told me that it was the mainstage on fire.”

As Soesbergen describes it, and as heard in widely shared videos of the fire as it burned, the sound of fireworks could be heard going off as the fire consumed the stage and everything on it, burning the massive structure down to its scaffolding.

Soesbergen says that at this point, he and his colleagues were instructed to gather in a holding area for food and beverage supplies while firefighters put out the blaze, which Soesbergen estimates took approximately two to three hours. He says he and other staff stayed there until approximately 8:30 p.m. local time, after a festival press conference and a staff briefing on next steps. At that point, he was allowed to leave the site.

He adds that the mood on site shifted after he and other vendors saw firefighters refilling their water near the vending area, and “we kind of saw [among them] that they had the situation under control, so we got a little bit more relaxed.”

During the press conference, Tomorrowland’s longtime spokeswoman Debby Wilmsen said that the plan is for the festival to go on as scheduled starting Friday (July 18), but that it will be without the mainstage this weekend as well as the second weekend of Tomorrowland, scheduled for July 25-27.

“Our production team will now do everything to make something beautiful out of it,” Wilmsen said during the press conference, as reported by Belgian outlet GVA. “We’ll have to make some changes, but the intention is for all the big artists to perform. We hope to be able to provide more clarity on this on Thursday.”

Wilmsen also said that cancellation is not a consideration for organizers, although “if tomorrow it turns out that the site is not safe and we receive instruction from the authorities, we will follow them. Safety is always the priority.”

There’s very little precedent guiding how Tomorrowland officials should move forward. Festivals have been afflicted by all kinds of terrible weather incidents, from torrential downpours and lightning strikes to tornadoes, wind storms and even a small earthquake at this year’s Coachella festival. But never before has a fire hit a festival’s main stage a day before the festival started.

The cause of the Tomorrowland fire is not yet known, but the public prosecutor’s office in Antwerp, Belgium, has launched an investigation. No one was injured in the blaze, and Tomorrowland still plans to open its DreamVille camping area to attendees on Thursday (July 18). Tomorrowland reports typically hosting 400,000 people across its two weekends.

But for organizers and fans, the loss of the mainstage is a crushing blow. Changing designs each year, the mainstage is the festival’s primary showpiece, with the fantastically designed structure hosting sets from the biggest artists on the lineup and drawing crowds that can swell to more than 100,000. At the press conference, Wilmsen noted that this year’s stage had been in the works for the last two years. On social media, some attendees are already requesting refunds, given that Tomorrowland 2025 will be without what is arguably one of its primary attractions.

“The Tomorrowland mainstage is a project on its own. It’s something that’s super special, and not only the people working for Tomorrowland, but everybody around the globe who loves it and looks forward to the reveal of the Tomorrowland mainstage and what’s going to happen there,” says Soesbergen.” So there was a lot of disbelief that this was the situation. The first hour and a half [of the situation] was really about disbelief.”

Additional reporting by Dave Brooks.

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Jelly Roll Brings Grit & Heart to In-Ring Debut at WWE SummerSlam 2025

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Jelly Roll made his WWE in-ring debut this weekend, and teamed up with Randy Orton to battle Drew McIntyre and Logan Paul at SummerSlam 2025. Jelly didn’t disappoint, as the brute country force rattled McIntyre and Paul with a series of slams and elbow drops, before ultimately falling short in his Saturday night (Aug. 2) WWE match.

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Ahead of the match, Jelly introduced tag partner Orton and performed his entrance theme song, “Voices,” electrifying the MetLife Stadium crowd in East Rutherford, N.J.

Kicking off the match against Paul, Jelly impressed early. Not only did he deliver some offense, including an impressive shoulder tackle on Paul, but he absorbed a flurry of attacks. The defining moment came when Paul sent Jelly crashing through the announcer’s table with a high-flying splash. Despite the setback, a hobbled Jelly Roll delivered a clinical performance: first chokeslamming Paul before issuing a punishing bodyslam. But Paul had the last laugh, connecting with a frog splash and scoring the 1-2-3.

Jelly, a lifelong wrestling fan, trained rigorously at WWE’s Performance Center ahead of his match, which contributed to his 230-pound weight loss.

“This is about belief — believing in myself — and wanting to selfishly be a part of a beautiful moment,” Jelly said earlier this week in an interview with WWE’s Jackie Redmond. “I love this business. I just wanna bring value. I’m not here to take nothing away. I’m not here to take nobody’s spot. I want to bring value. I think this is one of the greatest ages of storytelling I’ve seen in wrestling this decade.”

See clips of Jelly’s SummerSlam in-ring debut below.

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Jerry Garcia Has Childhood Street Named for Him in San Francisco

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A few hundred people gathered Friday (Aug. 1) to name a tiny San Francisco street after legendary Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia on what would have been his 83rd birthday, and as part of a citywide celebration to mark the band’s 60th anniversary.

7 Best Moments From Dead & Company’s Kickoff Celebrating 60 Years of the Grateful Dead in SF

Harrington Street, which is one block long, will also be called “Jerry Garcia Street.” Garcia died in 1995, but the band’s popularity has only grown as younger generations discover the Dead’s improvisational music, which blended rock, blues, folk and other styles.

Garcia spent part of his childhood in a modest home in the city’s diverse Excelsior neighborhood. He lived with his grandparents after the death of his father, Jose Ramon “Joe” Garcia.

“I hope that you all get a chance to enjoy the music, dance, hug, smile,” said daughter Trixie Garcia, growing emotional during her brief remarks. “Cherish what’s valuable, what’s significant in life.”

Tens of thousands of fans are in San Francisco to commemorate the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary with concerts and other activities throughout the city.

The latest iteration of the band, Dead & Company, with original Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, play Golden Gate Park’s Polo Field for three days this weekend (beginning with Friday’s show), with an estimated 60,000 attendees expected each day.

Formed in 1965, the Grateful Dead played often and for free in their early years while living in a cheap Victorian home in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. The band later became a significant part of 1967’s Summer of Love, and the Grateful Dead has become synonymous with San Francisco and its bohemian counterculture.

On Friday, fans in rainbow tie-dye and Grateful Dead T-shirts whooped and cheered as the sign was unveiled. Nonfans with shopping bags and some using walking canes maneuvered around the crowd on what was for them just another foggy day in the working-class neighborhood.

Afterward, devotees peeled off to pose for photos in front of Garcia’s childhood home.

Jared Yankee, 23, got the crowd to join him in singing “Happy Birthday.” Yankee said he flew in from Rhode Island for the shows. He got into the music about a decade ago.

“It’s a human thing,” he said of his impromptu singing. “I figure everyone knows the words to ‘Happy Birthday.’”

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Fans Choose Mariah The Scientist & Kali Uchis’ ‘Is It a Crime’ as This Week’s Favorite New Music

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“Is It a Crime,” the new duet from Mariah The Scientist and Kali Uchis, tops this week’s fan-voted music poll.

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Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (Aug. 1) on Billboard, choosing the pair’s fresh collaboration as their favorite new release of the past week.

“Is It a Crime” rose above a plethora of new releases — among them, songs from hitmakers like Demi Lovato, Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp and more. Mariah and Kali’s collab track topped the poll by a landslide, bringing in more than 57% of the vote.

“Is It a Crime,” a slow jam that has the two artists singing about the return of a past love — and defending the relationship if anyone’s got anything to say about it — dropped on July 31, with spicy, jail-themed single art. (“very intentional, very grown woman,” Uchis commented of their shoot on Instagram.)

The chorus of the song says it all: “And so what? I fell, you fell in love a couple times/ Tell me, what’s it to ya? Tell me, is it a crime/ To fall, to fall in love, in love a couple times?/ Tell me, what’s it to ya? Tell me, is it a crime to fall?”

Among the new releases trailing behind “Is It a Crime” on this week’s poll are Demi Lovato’s “Fast,” coming in with 17% of the vote; Chappell Roan’s “The Subway,” with 16% of the vote, and Reneé Rapp’s “Bite Me,” with 2% of the vote.

See the final results of this week’s poll below.

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