Engineering the sacred: Ritual design,emotional synchrony,and global youth identity at Tomorrowland

Abstract

This article examines Tomorrowland as a global ritual system that generates intense emotional, symbolic, and identity-forming experiences among young international participants. Drawing on a 15-year multi-sited methodology integrating autoethnography, sensory ethnography, participant observation, and narrative fragments, the study conceptualises the festival as a mythic and affective infrastructure rather than a conventional entertainment event. The analysis identifies five interrelated mechanisms: (1) myth-making machinery that produces a shared symbolic universe; (2) emotional synchrony shaped through sensory intensities and collective effervescence; (3) ritualised participation enacted through micro-practices such as flag exchanges, countdowns, and synchronised movement; (4) cosmopolitan belonging that fosters transnational communitas; and (5) performative selfhood through which participants craft aspirational identities via affective and digital practices. The findings show that Tomorrowland operates as a secular cosmology that temporarily suspends everyday boundaries and enables participants to inhabit alternative modes of relationality, emotional openness, and global youth identity. More broadly, the study demonstrates how contemporary mega-festivals function as ritual infrastructures that reorganise affect, symbolism, and belonging within global youth culture.