Tomorrowland to Showcase Kid DJs As young as 11 years old on New ‘Rise’ Stage

KIDs ARE DITCHING lemonade stands FOR the limelight As TOMORROWLAND ANNOUNCES new stage “RISE,” hosting 23 budding young DJS.

Projected to have 400,000 attendees over the span of two whimsical weekends in Boom, the people of tomorrow are eagerly waiting for their return to the grounds of Tomorrowland. With 15 unique stages already guaranteed to impress patrons, the brand revealed its final stage, “Rise” which will showcase young talent around the world from the age of 11 to 25.

The stage comes to life from the collaboration between the brand and its mentoring series, Tomorrowland Academy. The program is a summer boot camp for aspiring children and adults to enhance their production skills. Tomorrowland Academy is a high-quality DJ and production school that cultivates ambitious creatives. The program invites people with a passion for music to participate in weeklong electronic music mentoring workshops that cover the basis of Rekordbox, beat matching, loops, and much more. 

Founded in 2022, the Tomorrowland Academy is “an esteemed institution dedicated to inspire and empower enthusiastic people of tomorrow from every corner of the globe.” Their mission is to foster and grow the student’s “innate music and creative talent, by providing them access to everything needed to produce, release, create and perform music.”

This is the first time in the festival’s history that talent this young will be establishing a name for themselves on stage. It seems as though festival organizers are starting to take notice, as this shockingly is not the first time this year a kid DJs has been given a platform to shine. Last month, DJ Archie broke the record for the youngest DJ to perform at Glastonbury Festival at just 9 years old.

The youngest to perform on the Rise Stage is DJ Michelle, who will debut at 11 years old. Born in Azerbaijan and based in Dubai, there is no doubt DJ Michelle is a future star. At the age of 9, she became the youngest person to ever compete in the DMC World DJ Championship and specializes in scratch battles.

She gushed on Instagram writing, “I always say everything is possible! Whenever anyone asked me what’s next, what else I would love to achieve, I’d always reply that my dream is to perform at Tomorrowland,” She continues, “I’m telling you, dreams do come true. Tomorrowland, wait for me—I’m coming!”

Some of the other talents include Maite Dedecker, Horizontal Soundsystem, Varoc, DJ Elfigo, for the opportunity of a lifetime performing at one of the most respected dance music festivals in the world.
The 17th rendition of the Belgian festival will take place July 21-23 and the following weekend 28-30. You can purchase last-minute passes and find out more on the Tomorrowland website. For those who can’t make it, the official Tomorrowland website and Tomorrowland app will broadcast ten days of live music on One World TV. You can watch the stream here.

Kathryn Allyn

My favorite thing in the whole world is music and after hearing “One” by Swedish House Mafia for the first time in 2014, I was hooked on EDM. Dance music has been a large part of who I am and will always be searching for new ways to incorporate it in my life. The pure bliss that I feel from live shows is a feeling I never want to stop chasing (iykyk). Some of my favorite artists are Flume, Rüfüs Du Sol, Mindchatter, Disclosure, Dom Dolla and Fred Again.. 🙂

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