CELEBRATE 10 INCREDIBLE YEARS OF ONE DIRECTION THIS MONTH

Louis Tomlinson left Syco last week after coming to a mutual agreement with the label, the last member of One Direction to have remained with Simon Cowell. All have embarked on solo careers with varied success, so – at the moment at least – it seems unlikely a reunion is on the cards. Regardless, there’s a lot of room for nostalgia for the X Factor group who went on hiatus in 2016, with special celebrations planned for July 23, which marks 10 years since the band’s formation.

Among festivities will be the launch of a brand new 1D anniversary website, a 10 year celebration video especially made for their fans, and interactive playlists and activations across digital platforms.

A special ‘10 Years of One Direction’ website will launch on 23rd July, that will be an immersive and exciting interactive fan experience. The site will take the form of a timeline charting the history of 1D, from the first auditions of each of the original five members, right up to the beginning of their solo careers away from the band. It will host an archive of music videos, artwork, TV performances, behind-the-scenes and rarely-seen content, all in one place.

Fans will also be able to generate their own shareable ‘mixtape’ playlist on the site, which will be personalised according to how they’ve interacted with the site’s content and the eras they’ve spent the most time exploring. It will also allow fans to connect to Spotify or Apple Music, with the mixtape playlists being saved to their respective accounts.

A brand new anniversary celebration video for YouTube will also be released on 23rd July. The video will document highlights of the band’s career, from forming on The X Factor to releasing their single ‘History’, including clips from music videos, performances and candid behind the scenes video content. And of course the special relationship they have with their fans.

Reformatted EPs will be released across streaming platforms, featuring b-sides and rare songs, remixes, live recordings and acoustic versions of tracks grouped into one place for fans to rediscover.

There will also be exciting activations across Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and other platforms, including creating and updating One Direction playlists, whilst Amazon’s Alexa will be singing Happy Birthday to the band.

There’s been a lot of rumours circling about what the guys might have in mind to mark the date, with Liam Payne hinting in an interview with The Sun earlier this year,

“We’ve got a ten-year anniversary coming up so we’ve all been speaking together a lot over the last few weeks, which has been really nice.”

“To hear a lot of people’s voices and seeing old content and different things that we haven’t seen for a long time or never seen before, it’s very interesting. At the moment I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say. There’s a number of different things that we are all working on to try and make happen and people are forwarding emails around. But more than anything it’s just been a real good time for us to connect together again.”

Keep your eyes peeled for further information!

About the author

Lisa has been writing for over 20 years, starting as the entertainment editor on her university newspaper. Since then she's written for Popwrapped, Maximum Pop, Celebmix, and ListenOnRepeat.

Lisa loves all good music, with particular fondness for Jedward and David Bowie. She's interviewed Edward Grimes (Jedward), Kevin Godley, Trevor Horn, Paul Young, Peter Cox (Go West), Brendan B Brown (Wheatus), Bruce Foxton (The Jam), among many many more. Lisa is also available for freelance writing - please email lisa@essentiallypop.com

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