khoji parkMusic · London and Philadelphia · 1985
Two Stages, One Enormous Broadcast
One venue was no longer enough for the plan.
Read in slides1. A fundraising idea
Bob Geldof and Midge Ure helped organise a major musical response to famine in Ethiopia. The project grew into concerts on two continents. The organizers needed performances to connect with audiences far beyond each venue. Television made the event larger than its stadium capacity.
One venue was no longer enough for the plan.
2. A concert with several clocks
A live broadcast joining major venues had to coordinate more than the performers visible on either stage. Schedules, links and the timing of individual sets all mattered to the shared event. The audience watching at home encountered a single public occasion built from activity taking place in different places at the same time.
The backstage schedule had crossed an ocean.
3. The two stages
On 13 July 1985, performers appeared at Wembley in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Broadcast links connected the events to viewers elsewhere. Two main locations required coordination across an ocean. The broadcast had to join separate schedules into a shared public occasion.
The biggest audience was not standing in either stadium.
4. The long programme
A sequence of major acts filled a sixteen-hour event. The scale required coordination across performers, venues and broadcast teams. A short set could reach an enormous audience. The circumstances made stagecraft and timing especially important for each performer.
A running order had become an international engineering task.
5. Attention and money
The concerts raised funds and drew attention to famine relief. A successful broadcast did not by itself resolve the deeper causes of the emergency. Raising money was only one part of responding to famine. Delivering effective assistance involved further institutions, decisions and difficult conditions.
The final song could not be the final piece of work.
6. The appeal after the music
The benefit concert drew attention and money toward a real humanitarian emergency. Those resources still had to pass through the difficult work of assistance, involving organizations and conditions beyond the stage. A powerful public event could help create a response without becoming a complete solution to every problem that had produced the crisis.
The broadcast ended before the relief work did.
7. A lasting model
Live Aid became a landmark in benefit-concert and television history. It showed how music could mobilise an audience across national borders. The event remains a landmark in broadcasting and benefit concerts. Its visibility should not be confused with a complete solution to the crisis.
The stages were temporary. The fundraising model travelled.