Did you miss your local Make Music Day meet-up?

Here’s what you need to know…

And that’s a wrap… we’ve come to the end of the first phase of meet-ups that we’ve been running across the UK. But fear not, this blog post will bring you up-to-speed and let you know about other meet-ups, workshops and sessions you can get involved in, in the build-up to the 21 June.

So, what is the key info I need to know about Make Music Day 2021?

We want Make Music Day 2021 to continue to be the biggest DIY festival in the world, and we can only make this possible with your terrific involvement. In 125 counties across the world, people come together to celebrate music on the 21 June by putting on gigs in their communities, running music-making activities and lessons, streaming performances online, hosting music quizzes, taking part in music-related challenges and much more. Here’s a little video about what happened across the UK last year:

What are the key principles of Make Music Day events?

Well, it’s pretty simply really. Make Music Day events can be anything you’d like them to be, but there are three golden principles:

1. Events are free to attend – This means it should be free for audiences or for people to participate in. However, you can ask for donations, sell merchandise and beverages at events, or apply for funding in order to be able to pay people who are performing or helping to make the event happy.
2. It happens on the 21 June – This could be running an event on the day itself, or creating content – such as a video, new song, social media campaign – that you launch on the day as part of the annual celebration. 
3. It’s about music! – This could mean making music, performing music, talking about music, listening to music, dancing to music, doing quizzes about music… and it can be online or offline.

How can I get involved?

There are lots of ways you can get involved. If you’ve already got an idea for an event – big or small – and you know how to make it happen, then simply get it registered on the Make Music Day website. We will then be able to help promote it to people.

This year we’d love to see a mixture of online and in-person events, partly dependent of course on the COVID-19 situation. Stay tuned to our social media and newsletters to make sure you’re up-to-date with the latest guidance and our advice on what it means for music events on 21 June.

If you’re not sure what you’d like to do yet or need a bit of help and advice, then why not –

• Join one of the national meet-ups – these are great places to meet other people involved in Make Music Day, get ideas, ask questions and generally be inspired. You’ll also get to hear from our co-hosts that will share with you some top tips for organising and running music events.
• Sign-up for a ‘How To’ – these are workshops on specific skills area that might help you with your Make Music Day event. We’ve got some coming up on social media, video editing, marketing, working with young people and live-streaming.
• Drop into an Ask Us Anything session – these are happening in the run-up to the big day itself and are informal sessions were the Make Music Day UK team will do their best to help you with any questions that you have. Sort of like an informal advice session.
• Check out the Resources on our website – Over the next few months we will be making our resource section on the website bigger and better than before, so keep looking at it for guides, tutorials and toolkits on different areas – from livestreaming to marketing. Take a look – makemusicday.co.uk/resources

Full listings of our events, trainings and other offers can be found on our Meet-Ups and Workshops page – so sign-up now!