Kendrick Lamar will headline the Global Citizen Festival
By Kennedi Johnson
Social justice platform Global Citizen will host its fifth annual Global Citizen Festival on September 24 in New York’s Central Park, featuring an array of top performers including Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Selena Gomez, Major Lazer and Metallica.
Unlike most concerts, tickets are not for sale. Instead, in order to earn passes to the festival, you must take action to bring awareness to global issues including equal access to education and gender equality. These actions include tweeting messages to the UN Secretary General to support education initiatives, Instagramming a photo of yourself with a book that changed your life, and signing petitions. Global Citizen believes an increase in awareness of these issues will lead to an increase global action and leadership.
The festival will also feature Chris Martin of Coldplay, Usher, Ellie Golding, Yandel and Cat Stevens. “While much of the world’s great cities are becoming no-go areas and ruins besieged by fear and divisive conflicts, it’s great to see a global counter-movement for peace through rebalancing of wealth beyond politics and towards human equality,” says Stevens.
The Global Citizen Festival will be hosted by top-notch entertainers including Chelsea Handler, Hugh Jackman, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra, Salma Hayek and Seth Meyers. “I am proud and excited to be a part of such an important movement with Global Citizen,” says Handler. “The Festival helps bring serious issues into the broader conversation and encourages people to take action. This year’s focus is women and girls, which is such a prevalent topic in our society, I hope lending my voice and my action to this can help to positively impact those.”
The Festival is partnering with Gucci’s Chime for Change campaign. Cofounded by Beyoncé and Hayek, Chime for Change began in 2013 to fight for and to empower girls and women across the globe. It has funded more than 420 projects across 88 countries to date. “As cofounder of Chime for Change, I’ve been deeply inspired by the girls and women I have met around the world who are determined to get an education and build a better future,” says Hayek. “They are truly the agents of change who can help to bring an end to extreme poverty.”
Also partnering with the Festival for the fifth consecutive year is the mass media company iHeartMedia, which will bring its own initiative to the Festival: using music as a tool to fight inequality, protect the Earth, and end extreme poverty by 2030.
Up to 50,000 tickets will be given out to Global Citizens for the Festival. Limited VIP tickets are available for purchase here.
Even if you can’t make it to the festival, you can get in on the action from the comfort of your own couch, because the Global Citizen Festival will be aired live on MSNBC and livestreamed on YouTube.
Click here to learn more about Global Citizen. Click here to support Chime for Change.