Liveurope venues light up their facades in blue to mark Europe Day

To mark the 7th edition of our celebration of Europe Day, the Liveurope venues have lit up their facades in blue on 8 and 9 May. The cross-border coordinated action is meant to reaffirm our commitment to continue working together closely to nurture and boost the European music scene in the years to come.

Despite the many challenges the live music sector is facing, we have continued looking for new ways to help artists reach new audiences beyond their national borders and give them opportunities to play. For this reason, we teamed up with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to produce 15 showcases with promising European talent which are being broadcast by major public radios all over the continent throughout May. Participating stations include WDR’s 1 Live in Germany, RTVE’s Radio Nacional in Spain, Radio France’s FIP in France, Polskie Radio’s Czwórka in Poland, Radio Beograd 1 in Serbia

“The severe restrictions on free movement has made us all the more convinced about the importance of European collaboration. With this symbolic gesture, we wanted to reaffirm our commitment to continue strengthening our ties with our peers and boost European music diversity and talent. This is the only way we can achieve a full recovery of the live music sector” says Tom Bonte, General Manager of Brussels-based venue Ancienne Belgique, coordinating venue of the initiative. 

The line-up features some of the most promising European artists out there including the GRAMMY nominee Turkish-Dutch band Altın Gün, Spanish lockdown musical sensation Stay Homas, Slovenia's Eurovision finalist Zalagasper & the explosive Norwegian act Pom Poko. For the artists, the campaign has been a unique opportunity to reach new audiences abroad in times when they can't physically cross borders. Belgian pop sensation David Numwami puts it this way: “Here I am playing potentially for people in Poland, in France maybe… it’s a whole new experience for a musician. In the future, I hope I can play in the different Liveurope venues. I have already played in some of them and they are really great”.

The campaign was carried out with the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Commission and received the official endorsement of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the Cultural Creators Friendship Group in the European Parliament.

More than one year after the start of the pandemic and the closure of concert venues, this initiative also highlighted their important role in shaping the future of the European music ecosystem.

“This period has opened the door for innovative experimentation, but it has also shown the irreplaceable value of live music, and its ability to create connections between people over borders. And it’s definitely something we will need more of to recover from the past 15 months of social isolation we have all been facing” concludes Elise Phamgia, general coordinator of Liveurope. 

Find more details about the campaign on www.europeday.live

Image

See all pictures from the venues in higher resolution here.

In the banner: Kino Šiška. Picture by Aleš Rosa