The
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) announced on 27 September 2019 that it would join radio stations from seven other countries, and a potential audience of 18 million listeners, in hosting a one-off dance music simulcast on 11 October. The
first simulcast began at 19:00
BST and ended at 02:00 BST on 12 October, with
Annie Mac introducing for BBC Radio 1 in
London. Seven radio stations across Europe joined the simulcast:
1LIVE, ,
Mouv',
NPO 3FM,
RTÉ 2FM,
SR P3 and
Studio Brussel. Each radio station contributed an hour of dance music from their respective countries, except in the case of 1LIVE and Fritz, who contributed 30 minutes each from
Cologne and
Berlin respectively. Some stations chose to feature at least one live
DJ set as part of their contribution. Each radio station sent their feeds to
Broadcasting House in London, where they were mixed by BBC senior technical producer Dan Morris before being sent back to the radio stations for broadcast. Despite the simulcast being billed as a one-off event,
two subsequent editions of the simulcast were presented in May and October 2020 respectively, before it became an annual event, with new editions presented in the following years and more radio stations joining the simulcast. Since the
2021 edition, each participating radio station, including 1LIVE and Fritz, has contributed 30 minutes of dance music from their respective countries instead of an hour. In March 2024, BBC Radio 1 launched a spin-off event called ''Europe's Biggest Soundsystem Party'' alongside partner stations 1LIVE and Mouv'; this was followed in February 2025 by
Europe’s Biggest Gig, with contributions from RTÉ 2FM, Studio Brussel, 1LIVE and, for the first time,
Rás 2. ==Participating broadcasters==