By Laura Ferreiro
In an effort to raise awareness and bring in money to combat global poverty, the Foo Fighters, Neil Young, Black Keys, K’Naan and Band of Horses will perform at a concert in New York’s Central Park on September 29.
The event is dubbed the Global Festival and is a free, ticketed event organized by the Global Poverty Project, which educates and activates people to be a part of the movement to end global poverty.
Tickets for the event will be given out lottery-style, but there’s a catch. In order to be entered into the lottery, people must take action for the charities and causes represented by the event. This can be as simple as signing petitions and sharing content on Global Citizen, and the more you get involved, the more chances you have to win.
“We wanted to make it different from other benefit concerts – we didn’t want it to be the same as, say, Live 8,” Hugh Evans, co-founder of the Global Poverty Project, told Rolling Stone. “We wanted to do something unique for our generation.”
The artists on the bill also expressed their support for the cause. “We are very proud to be lending a hand to such a creative, important event and are looking forward to adding to the noise in the big park and helping the effort toward reducing the global shame of deep poverty,” Foo Fighters said in a statement.
The timing of the event is no coincidence – it takes place while international leaders meet to discuss issues of global poverty at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Organizer Evans added that music and social change have gone hand in hand for centuries – from ending slave trade in the 1800s to ending apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s, so the Global Festival seemed like the perfect way to bring attention to this life-and-death issue.
“(Music) gives us an outlet to express that which we care about in the most meaningful and passionate of ways, which is the whole point of the Global Festival – it’s equitable, so anyone can get involved in uniting so many people and non-profits around one cause.”
To get involved and enter the ticket lottery, visit the Global Citizen Project here.