Thousands of electronic dance music (EDM) fans descended on   Belgium July 27-29 for one of Europe’s largest music events of the year, the Tomorrowland 2012 music festival. Concert goers anticipated the event so much that it sold out all 180,000 tickets in seconds. Estimates placed the numbers of attendees at 60,000 or more. The annual event in Boom, Belgium, a town about 30 miles north of Brussels, covers a sprawling 185 acres and essentially was its own small town.

In case you were one of the approximately two million people who tried to get tickets for the concert or just heard about it afterwards, the lineup was as impressive as it was deep. The headliners at the concert included Carl Cox, Marco Carola,Seth Troxler, Extrawelt, Fatboy Slim, and John Digweed, to name a few. Tomorrowland had 16 stages, plenty of vendors, and a campground, so not only could one go around and hear different acts, but also sleep in the midst of the action.

Before getting into the acts themselves, it’s important to set the scene for how phenomenal the concert was. One of the hallmarks of the concert was its vibrancy. The main stage, for instance, was what could be called a bibliophile’s dream. It was constructed to look like it was made of giant books.

Its size required nine months to construct and weighed in at a hefty 138 tons. The dreamlike quality of the presentation carried over into the clothing of the revelers who were encouraged by the concert’s website to bring brightly colored garments roomy enough to allow the freedom of movement to dance wherever one happened to be while listening to the pulse-pounding beats.