Overview

Azeem Ward’s Flute Recital refers to a Facebook event page for a flute recital performed by University of California student Azeem Ward, which was flooded with RSVPs from Facebook users in the United Kingdom in May 2015.

Background

On April 20th, 2015, the UC Santa Barabara YouTube channel uploaded footage of student Azeem Ward playing the contemporary classical flute solo (shown below).

In mid-May, Ward posted an event announcement on Facebook^[2] to promote a free recital performance of classics like Devienne Concerto No. 7, Gaubert Sonata No.3, Roitstein’s Flautas and Three Beats for beatbox flute, as well as a selection of his original works. The event was scheduled for May 16th at 3 p.m. in the Karl Geiringer Hall at the University of California Santa Barbara. In the days leading up to the concert, the event page inexplicably began receiving a flood of RSVPs from Facebook users in the United Kingdom, receiving over 80,000 confirmations by May 15th (shown below).

Notable Developments

Ward's Response

On May 13th, Ward posted a message to the event page thanking all his fans in the United Kingdom.

Online Reaction

On May 13th, a petition was created on Change.org^[3] for Ward to livestream the recital for his fans in the United Kingdom. In the first 48 hours, the page gained over 800 signatures. Additionally, a crowdfunding page was launched to fly Ward to the United Kingdom to play the song "Sandstorm" by Darude at a Nando's restaurant.^[4]

On May 14th, YouTuber TheRealSnare uploaded a remix of Ward's flute solo with the 2013 hip-hop song "Gas Pedal" by Sage the Gemini (shown below, left). The same day, Redditor Gloob_Patrol submitted a post asking "Why is everyone talking about Azeem's flute recital?" to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[7] subreddit. On May 15th, YouTuber Sam Hershy uploaded a version of Ward's flute solo video edited to sound as if he is playing "Sandstorm" by Darude (shown below, right). The same day, a Facebook^[5] page titled "Azeem Ward" was launched, gathering upwards of 1,600 likes in the first 10 hours.

News Media Coverage

On the following day, The Tab^[11] published an interview with Ward. In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the viral Facebook event page, including The Daily What,^[6] Metro,^[8] Daily Nexus^[9] and LAist.^[10] On May 15th, Ward appeared in a call-in interview during the episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

Turnout

Upon its launch, the event page received approximately received 70 RSVPs, but as the story began to gain massive online attention through Facebook and Twitter on May 14th, the number of attendees grew exponentially from a few thousands, then to nearly 50,000 before surpassing the 100,000 attendees mark. Due to the concert venue's limited capacity of 100 available seats, a livestreaming event was set up online to accommodate more than a hundred thousand viewers, mostly based in the United Kingdom. According to the news reports, more than 55,000 viewers tuned into the livecast of Ward's recital, with many UK college students setting up screening parties as the event fell on a Saturday night in local time.

Search Interest

External References