Make Music Day returned to the world stage on Friday June 21st, drawing together musicians and fans across more than 120 countries for free gigs, workshops celebrating every kind of music. Among the highlights was a flagship outdoor show at London’s The Scoop, located beside Tower Bridge, where a capacity crowd danced to bands including THePETEBOX, Kinetika Bloco, Hotsteppas and up-and-coming reggae punk four piece Smiley and the Underclass. The event was part of London Bridge City’s summer-long Summer by the River festival.

For the first time, Make Music Day also offered fans online the chance to join in with the celebrations courtesy of a coordinated 12-hour series of live streams from countries across the globe. For the centrepiece London concert, a high-end, four hour stream to Facebook Live relied upon a Roland V-1HD for seamless, mission critical switching.

Make Music Day originated in France in 1982 as Fête de la Musique. Since then, the event has continued to take place on June 21st each year and has expanded to encompass more than 1,000 cities. The vast number of performances that took place within the UK alone for this year’s edition are estimated to have reached an audience of 300,000 people.

For the London event, the challenges of mounting a high-end live stream from an open-air, riverside venue were met by Kent-based production company The Inside Story.

“Producing a live stream for a concert of this prestige takes a lot more than waving your phone at the stage and hoping for the best – we wanted Make Music Day to look just as impressive online as in person,” says John Hull, Head of Video for The Inside Story. “But that can be difficult to achieve in a venue like The Scoop. For example, we had to ensure that we had a faultless connection for the streaming to Facebook, despite there being no available wired or wireless internet connection on the premises. More importantly, the final production had to have the look and feel of a professional broadcast, which is where the Roland V-1HD was vital.”

Maintaining flawless streaming, a LiveU Solo provided a redundant 4G signal for the dual-camera broadcast, while the V-1HD switcher sat at the heart of the set-up.

“This was actually the first time that I had used the V-1HD, and I was really impressed with the simplicity of operation and reliability on the day,” continues Hull. “With an event like Make Music Day, you can’t help but be aware of all the people around the world who have devoted themselves to making it happen, and you don’t want to be the guy who messes that up! But with the V-1HD that never felt like a concern. We were able to simply plug in and get to work.”

Designed for ease of operation and maximum compatibility, the Roland V-1HD is a compact video switching solution with a wealth of features. Onboard are four HDMI inputs, two HDMI outputs, support for full 1080p HD and a full 12 channel audio mixer.

“This was the first year we attempted a professional live stream for Make Music Day UK and it was great working with The Inside Story who held our hand through the process,” said Alison Porter, Make Music Day UK lead project manager. “Make Music Day is a global event and we therefore wanted to share our London flagship event with music fans across the world, not just those fortunate enough to be able to attend in person. Our live stream was part of a globally coordinated live stream which also featured performances from Argentina, Australia, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Nigeria, UK, USA, and more. It enabled us to feel part of something huge and to celebrate music-making with so many others around the world.”

Make Music Day will return on June 21st 2020. For more information visit www.makemusicday.org. For more information on the Roland V-1HD, visit proav.roland.com/global/products/v-1hd/.

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