Global Citizen Festival will take over The Great Lawn of New York's Central Park tomorrow. Stevie Wonder, Kings of Leon, Alicia Keys, John Mayer and the recently added Elvis Costello will perform for free to raise awareness for worldwide poverty. According to the website, "The focus of this year's festival is celebrating success and accelerating progress to a world without extreme poverty by 2030."
Tickets for the festival are "earned" rather than purchased. People who wished to attend the festival had the opportunity to sign petitions, take quizzes, volunteer and educate themselves to earn points that they could cash in for entry into the lottery. Five drawings took place from July 29 to Sept. 16 with 54,000 free tickets given out. VIP tickets were also available for purchase.
The festival is not releasing a schedule, as it would like attendees to be there for the whole festival. The gates open at 2 p.m., the smaller shows start at 4 p.m. with headliners beginning at 4:30 p.m.
Past artists who have performed at the festival include Neil Young with Crazy Horse, Foo Fights, The Black Keys, Band of Horses, K'Naan and more.
The four policy goals the foundation is aiming for this year revolve around education, women's equality, health and global partnerships.
They explains the background of the festival stating, "Music transcends boundaries and languages and serves as an outlet for raising awareness around that face everyone. Through music, we have an opportunity to reach millions with the message that we can end extreme poverty in a generation, which means reducing gender inequality, eradicating preventable diseases like polio and malaria, increasing access to education, and more."
If you aren't able to attend the festival, you can register for the live stream at festival.globalcitizen.org.
Are you planning to stream the shows or attend live? Let us know what you think of the festival in the comments section below!
