In what’s sure to be the most heavily trafficked live performance in the history of the Internet, as well as breaking bandwidth records (even beyond it’s normal 1 billion views a day), YouTube will be streaming this Sunday’s U2 concert live from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California at 8:30 PM PST. The event marks the first YouTube broadcast of a live concert in its entirety. If you can’t make it in person be sure to tune in as it’s certain to be an amazing show.
As Wired states:
“We are streaming the Rose Bowl U2 live concert onto our platform, inviting millions of people around the country and around the world to participate in what we say is the world’s largest band on the world’s largest platform,” said Chris Maxcy, Google’s director of YouTube partner development.
The show, part of the U2 360° tour, will be webcast starting at 8:30 p.m. PST Sunday.
YouTube has experimented with live content before, broadcasting its YouTube Live show in November 2008, and showing live segments of the Outside Lands music festival, and says it plans to offer more webcasts similar to this U2 one in the future. But don’t expect it to become a place where you can watch live music any time soon — not until the rights situations get sorted out. The reason you don’t see more live music, now that the technology is here, is that the rights associated with doing it are complex and often owned by multiple parties (band members, song writers, labels, publishers, managers, the venue, the production company, etc.), all of whom must be wined and dined (or at least persuaded to sign a piece of paper) before the song can be webcast.
When asked whether rights issues would hamper a wider rollout of the program, Maxcy implied that the rights issues make this something that will only be available for high-profile bands, due to the amount of negotiating that must take place before a show is webcast.
“Obviously, when you have the opportunity to get the world’s largest band in a venue like this, we thought that 90,000 seats wasn’t enough,” said Maxsy. “So we will continue obviously to look for opportunities to provide that value within the context of making sure that we’re covering ourselves and the band with respect to all licensing that we need to do.”
He didn’t specify how YouTube’s live audio-and-video streaming technology differs from its other streams, but acknowledged that a different system is in place for them — and that it will be able to handle millions of users from the 16 countries covered by its licensing arrangement. The show will be presented as a free, ad-supported stream; the types of ads that will be used “are still to be determined.”
As with YouTube’s stream of the movie Taxi Driver last Friday, fans will be able to chat with each other as they watch, using an integrated Twitter feed. Another thoughtful addition to U2’s free concert: a “donate now” button linking to the RED campaign, a charity co-founded by Bono whose goal is to eliminate AIDS in Africa.
You can watch the live event at YouTube.com/U2 [or by clicking through the above video] starting at 8:30 p.m. PT on Sunday, October 25, if you are in any of the following countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Italy, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Mexico, India, Israel, South Korea and the Netherlands. Following the show, an archived version will be available at YouTube.com/U2official. (Apparently, U2ube.com was already taken.)
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