Overview
- The festival officially commenced Friday afternoon with headline acts performing on a replacement main stage erected in just two days.
- Organizers and contractors worked continuously through Thursday and Friday to assemble the alternative stage after Wednesday’s blaze destroyed the original.
- Firefighters deployed roughly 100 personnel overnight to extinguish the wooden main stage inferno and cleared the site by 8 a.m. Thursday.
- Antwerp prosecutors are probing a pyrotechnics-test explosion as a possible ignition source, with investigators noting the largely wooden stage design facilitated the rapid spread.
- DreamVille campsite openings and Global Journey events in Brussels and Antwerp continued on schedule, supporting the festival’s roughly 400,000 international visitors.