This is our fourth year organizing Make Music Vancouver and we are so excited to bring it back again! This free celebration is entirely run by volunteers – from organizers to musicians – doing it for the love of music and community!

 

WHAT IS MAKE MUSIC VANCOUVER?

Make Music Vancouver is an entirely free live music event that brings the local community together from June 19 to June 24. On Make Music day (June 24), Water Street is shut down to traffic and is transformed into sidewalk stages and dance floors, showcasing Vancouver’s incredible cultural and artistic diversity. This grassroots event is being made possible entirely by volunteers, from organizers to performers. It showcases hundreds of amateur and established musicians, and celebrates music in all its diversity. The first-ever edition was a resounding success, bringing 150 bands and 20 000 spectators to the streets of Gastown on June 21st 2011.Make Music Vancouver was inspired by La Fête de la Musique, an event launched in France in 1982, and has since gone global, taking place each year in over 450 cities worldwide today.It is being organized by Vancouver en Français and the Alliance Française de Vancouver, both non-profit cultural associations.

 

MAKE MUSIC – A 33-YEAR OLD GLOBAL EVENT!

Make Music Vancouver isn’t a stand-alone event – it is part of a global live music celebration that takes place every year  in over a hundred countries! Where and how did it all start? Well, once upon a time in 1981, in a land not so far away called France, a study came out which revealed that a large part of the population, including half of all children, played a musical instrument. And so a few visionaries at the French Ministry of Culture started dreaming up a way to bring people out on the streets to share their music – they called it “La Fête de la Musique.�?

The first Fête de la Musique took place in Paris on June 21st, 1982. Thousands of amateur and professional musicians flooded the streets of the capital and, to the delight of crowds of dancing spectators, ushered in the first day of summer to the sounds of an impressive diversity of musical genres.The following year the event started spreading to other French cities, and in 1985, beyond France’s borders. Today, thanks to the impulse and the dynamism of the French cultural network abroad and to the dedication of countless volunteers, la Fête de la Musique, also known as “Make Music,�? is celebrated in over 450 cities worldwide.

And in 2011, la Fête de la Musique finally made its way to Vancouver! That first year, 20,000 people, including hundreds of musicians and volunteers, converged on Gastown to experience Make Music Vancouver. The event was such a success that the following year, in 2012, Water Street was closed to traffic, thus creating a huge outdoor public space, and over 25,000 visitors made the streets of Gastown their dance floor.Join us on June 24th for the fourth Vancouver edition of the biggest global live music celebration!