Materialise 3D Prints Majestic Ring for Tomorrowland Music Festival Video

Ever since the first edition took place in 2005, Belgian summer has been overtaken by Tomorrowland, the explosive and immensely popular electronic music festival held in a wooded area just north of Brussels. Known to be the biggest festival of its kind, hundreds of thousands gather at the end of July to experience the lights, sounds, and feelings that the fairytale-themed event has to offer. The 12th annual edition, which took place from July 22 to 24, featured sets from globally renowned DJs such as Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Axwell Λ Ingrosso, Martin Garrix, Tiësto, Afrojack, and many more.

Now, although the electronic music festival scene isn’t exactly my forte, it’s hard not to appreciate such a formidable and successful music festival, one that has served as the grounds for likeminded people to come together and celebrate the sounds that they enjoy for a dozen years now. What’s even more unique about Tomorrowland is that each year is based on a new theme, most of them revolving around the ideas of wisdom, happiness, and life. The motif for this year was “The Elixir of Life”, and like usual, the festival organizers put together an introduction video to prepare attendees for the weekend of a lifetime.

This year’s introductory video featured an elven-like woman foraging throughout the forest to find the perfect combination of natural elements to create the ultimate perfume. If you’ve watched the video closely enough, you may have noticed the wondrous and organic ring worn by the scavenging woman.

Believe it or not, this ring was created by the Belgium-based 3D printing company Materialise. Looking to fit with Tomorrowland’s natural aesthetic, Materialise designed the ring with freedom and Mother Nature in mind, appearing to mimic the roots of a tree growing together.

Materialise utilized their SLA (Stereolithography) system to print the unique ring design from resin material, which was then finished and cured to give it the appearance of aged, rustic metal. After all of the final touches were added to the 3D printed band, the team inlaid a precious stone to give it that elven flavor found throughout the introductory video.

Although the 3D printed ring plays a minor role in the video (it can be seen holding her scarf together at 1:52), it certainly helped to complement the “Elixir of Life” theme that Tomorrowland was aiming for.

Surprisingly enough, 3D printing technology and electronic music have joined force on numerous occasions, even outside of the outrageously large Tomorrowland festival. In the recent past, we’ve seen MakerBot 3D print the album artwork for the Brooklyn-based producer Baauer, as well as designer Francis Bitonti’s collaboration with the electronic music duo Feral Five to create their own 3D printed music. Suffice to say, 3D printing technology and electronic music festivals like Tomorrowland have more in common than you might expect. Both help us to expand our imagination beyond what was thought to be possible in the past, and they also seem to be growing in popularity at a rapid pace. Discuss further in the Materialise 3D Prints for Tomorrowland Character forum over at 3DPB.com.