2012 British music concert commemorating Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee
The Diamond Jubilee Concert was a British music concert and celebration held outside Buckingham Palace on The Mall in London on 4 June 2012. The concert was organised by Take That singer-songwriter Gary Barlow and was part of Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
The Diamond Jubilee Concert followed two concerts held at the palace for the Queen's Golden Jubilee a decade earlier – the classical themed Prom at the Palace and the pop/rock themed Party at the Palace, followed by the Platinum Party at the Palace for the Queen's Platinum Jubilee in 2022.
The concert was partially attended by the Queen, who arrived at 9 pm, but not by Prince Philip who had been taken to hospital with a bladder infection earlier in the day. Prince Charles and other members of the royal family attended the whole concert.
Ticketing.
Ten thousand free tickets were made available to the public, with applications possible, by post or online, between 7 February and 2 March 2012. After the application period closed, successful applicants were then drawn by random ballot. A total of 1.2 million applications were eventually received, 240 for every available pair. Non-ticketed attendees could watch the concert on giant TV screens in the Mall and local Parks. Estimates of these free attendees range from 250,000 to 500,000 people.
Date, venue and stage.
The concert took place on bank holiday Monday 4 June as part of the extended weekend celebrations for the Diamond Jubilee, which ran from 2 to 5 June. The acts performed on a specially constructed stage, with a canopy, around the Queen Victoria Memorial, in front of the palace. The stage was designed by Mark Fisher.
House band.
The house band, led by Mike Stevens, who was also the Musical Director of the concert, consisted largely of the Take That/Gary Barlow band, a few additional musicians and the BBC Concert Orchestra. The house band performed with many of the guest artists that were featured, however Tom Jones, Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney brought their own bands to the concert.
Diamond Jubilee song.
Gary Barlow and Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a song for the jubilee entitled "Sing" which was performed for the first time at the concert by a choir from many Commonwealth countries. The song draws inspiration from the music and people of the Commonwealth. Its creation was the subject of a one-hour BBC documentary broadcast on 3 June 2012 by BBC One.
Jubilee picnic.
Concert ticket holders were given access to the palace gardens for an afternoon picnic before the main event. They were served cold hampers with a British themed menu specially designed by Heston Blumenthal and the royal chef Mark Flanagan.
Performances.
The running order was:
Broadcasting.
The concert was broadcast live on BBC One, BBC One HD and BBC Radio 2. American broadcaster ABC showed highlights the following day after as "Concert for the Queen: A Diamond Jubilee Celebration With Katie Couric" as well as an encore airing on 9 June. Broadcasting unions announced in April 2012 that they would ballot their members over taking strike action due to an ongoing pay dispute with the BBC, leading to media speculation that the BBC coverage of the concert could be affected. It was later confirmed that the BBC's coverage wouldn't be affected by any strikes. It aired on 5 June on CBC television in Canada. BBC Entertainment showed the concert on 8 June in Latin America.
The concert aired from 19:30 until approximately 23:00 UK time. In the UK the programme was seen by an average of 15.32 million viewers on BBC One, making it the 6th highest UK TV audience of 2012, but peaking near 17 million.
For the ABC broadcast the following aired:
The show of 5 June on ABC opened to 6.4 million (4.1/6) before rising in the second hour to 7.2 million (4.7/8) for an average of 6.8 million viewers for the evening.
The broadcast was aired on Channel 9 in Australia on 5 June – and was broadcast in its entirety apart from: 
References.
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