CORE Medellín

There is something unusually logical about CORE finding a second home in Medellín. The city is surrounded by mountains, filled with tropical vegetation and at the same time supported by an electronic culture strong enough to sustain major clubs and festivals throughout the year. When Tomorrowland brought the CORE concept there in May 2024, it did not attempt to build a Colombian version of its enormous Belgian flagship. Parque Norte offered a more concentrated setting in which house, techno, art, stage design and nature could occupy the same environment without the experience depending on constant fireworks or an endless sequence of superstar DJs. What emerged was a distinct regional identity inside the growing CORE universe: visually ambitious, but musically deeper and increasingly focused on long sets, club culture and an audience that came primarily to dance.

The debut on May 11 and 12, 2024 sold out in less than forty-eight hours and eventually welcomed nearly forty thousand people across the weekend. More than twenty-five artists performed over three stages and around twenty-two hours of music. CORE acted as the visual centrepiece, presenting the new monumental face structure that Tomorrowland had recently unveiled in Tulum. Agents Of Time, ANNA, Antdot, Bora Uzer, Kölsch, BICEP, Brina Knauss, Kevin de Vries and Mind Against were among the artists appearing there. AltVerda sat among columns of light and vegetation with Chet Faker in DJ mode, HAAi, DJ BORING, fka.m4a and Dino Lenny, while Arbo used fabric, smoke and a smaller scale for Julianna, WOST, Valesuchi, Mystery Affair, Sinego and others. From the first edition, international production and Latin American club culture were being placed deliberately beside one another rather than treated as separate worlds.

The CORE structure itself helped make the debut instantly recognisable. The face stood around seventeen metres high and thirty metres wide, yet had been engineered as a touring design capable of fitting into a single container. Water fountains, geysers, smoke, fog, moving lights and pyrotechnics transformed the expression of the figure as daylight disappeared. Medellín gave that travelling architecture a character it could not reproduce elsewhere. The vegetation of Parque Norte, humid evening air and surrounding city altered the way the stage felt, making the design appear less like an object placed on a festival site and more like something emerging from the environment. That relationship is fundamental to CORE. Nature is not supposed to be background decoration; the production is designed to interact with it, and Medellín offered one of the most convincing settings imaginable for that philosophy.

CORE returned quickly on February 14 and 15, 2025. The second edition again used three stages but introduced a different internal architecture. The original CORE face design arrived in Colombia, MANO appeared as a new space built around two huge hands emerging from the earth, and ARBO gave significant room to Colombian talent. Paul Kalkbrenner, Âme, Agents Of Time, Carlita, Dino Lenny, ANNA b2b Vintage Culture, Antdot b2b Maz, Dixon, Bora Uzer and WhoMadeWho represented the international side, while Bibi Seck, Dany F, Paula Temple, Avalon Emerson, KETTAMA, Young Marco and a broad Colombian programme expanded the sound towards different corners of contemporary club culture. By then, CORE Medellín was already beginning to feel less like a visiting Tomorrowland production and more like a recurring date in the city's electronic calendar.

The third edition, held on February 20 and 21, 2026, confirmed that evolution. More than thirty-five artists performed for roughly thirty-two thousand people across two nights at Parque Norte. Dom Dolla made his first-ever appearance in Colombia, while ARTBAT, VTSS, Patrick Mason, Interplanetary Criminal, 999999999, Indira Paganotto, Kobosil, Mind Against, Dino Lenny and Joris Voorn b2b Yotto moved the programme from house and melodic techno towards harder techno and newer trance-informed sounds. Oscar and the Wolf added a genuine live-performance dimension to a festival otherwise dominated by DJs, while Cami Vasquez, Niebla, Dezko, Honey Vergony and other local artists strengthened the Colombian presence. CORE was no longer simply importing a European electronic aesthetic; it was increasingly building credibility inside a city with its own established club identity.

That relationship has also moved beyond the festival gates. Tomorrowland Foundation entered a long-term collaboration with 4Eskuela, a Medellín community organisation connected to hip hop, DJing, MCing, breakdance, graffiti and creative programmes for young people. The partnership fits the way CORE now describes its future in Colombia: not as a temporary stop on an international tour, but as a long-term Latin American presence that should develop genuine local roots. As of August 2026, dates for a fourth edition have not yet been announced, but the organisation explicitly talks about continuity and continues to maintain Medellín within the official CORE universe. After three editions, the city has already given the concept something that cannot simply travel inside a shipping container: a local relationship between the monumental face, the vegetation of Parque Norte, warm Colombian nights and a dancefloor that increasingly feels as though CORE belongs there.