The Concert for Bangladesh was also the title of the accompanying live album, a boxed three-record set, released in December 1971 (January 1972 in Britain), and Apple Films' concert documentary, which opened in cinemas in the spring of 1972. The shows were organised to raise international awareness and fund relief efforts for refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), following the 1970 Bhola cyclone, and during the Bangladesh Liberation War and what came to be known as the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities. The Concert for Bangladesh (or Bangla Desh, as the country name was spelled originally) was the name for two benefit concerts organised by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, held at noon and at 7pm on Sunday, 1 August 1971, playing to a total of 40,000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York City.