Thousands of revelers at the “Tomorrowland 2017” festival at Parc de Can Zam on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain had to be evacuated after the stage caught fire.

Stage at ‘Tomorrowland 2017’ in Spain bursts into flames

A social media user said DJ Armin van Buuren was performing in his set when the fire started, rapidly engulfing the whole stage. A witness at the “Tomorrowland’ music festival in Barcelona, Spain, on Saturday night said on social media that the stage had “exploded.” This was followed by a massive fire which engulfed the stage. About 22,000 festival-goers were evacuated.

Event livestreamed from Belgium

As reported by Billboard, there was no one actually on the stage at the time of the incident, as the festival was being livestreamed from the main event in Boom, Belgium on a huge screen, along with specialized, synchronized effects. The festival is being streamed to eight European countries this year, with this weekend being the second of “Tomorrowland 2017.”

According to the Evening Standard, top DJ Steve Aoki was set to headline the event a few hours later, but Barcelona fans missed out on that event as they evacuated the arena.

Aoki is known for his popular collaboration with One Direction star, Louis Tomlinson, with the chart-topping “Just Hold On.” He was due on stage at 2 a.m. Central European time and the event was set to conclude at around 3 a.m.

All festival-goers evacuated safely

No one was injured in the fire and reportedly the evacuation was carried out in a calm and organized manner.

According to a tweet by the Director General of Catalunya civil protection, there were 22,143 people evacuated from the event.

So far, the official cause of the fire has not been reported, however Spanish media said it appears to have been related to a firework display that was part of the entertainment. The fire was soon brought under control, but did completely destroy the stage, speaker system and the large screen on which the festival was being broadcast.

Organizers of the electronic dance music festival later released a statement to say that a technical malfunction had caused the "Tomorrowland 2017" Barcelona stage to catch fire. Organizers went onto thank authorities for their professional intervention in the incident, as all 22,000 festival-goers were evacuated safely and uninjured. The statement concluded that authorities are now investigating the incident together with the local festival organizers.

This is the second disastrous incident at a large music festival in Spain. Earlier this month, an acrobat died while performing at the “Mad Cool” festival in the country’s capital, Madrid.
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