Acrpost: A Project of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres

Event Description

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 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.”