Prominent Australian anti-poverty campaigner Hugh Evans has landed a couple of the world’s biggest acts to play the Global Festival, which is to be held in New York’s Central Park on September 29.
Rolling Stone reports that Neil Young, Foo Fighters, the Black Keys, Band of Horses and K’naan will all play at the event, which is designed to bring awareness and funds to the cause of ending global poverty.
Evans, who was one of the brains behind the Make Poverty History concert at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl in November 2006, is the co-founder of the Global Poverty Project, who are organising the festival in conjunction with Coachella’s promoters Goldenvoice/AEG.
The festival is timed to make an impact – it’s taking place while international leaders will be gathered at the United Nations General Assembly Meeting, to discuss commitments and solutions to significantly reduce worldwide poverty by 2015.
Evans told Rolling Stone that he wanted the event to offer a point of difference from other similar fundraisers.
“We wanted to make it different from other benefit concerts – we didn’t want it to be the same as, say, Live 8,” he said. “We wanted to do something unique for our generation.”
Tickets to the Global Festival will be free and given away in a lottery. However, to be placed in the lottery, potential concertgoers will need to earn their way in by performing charitable acts through the Project’s ‘Global Citizen’ website. According to New York Daily News, fans can earn points through acts such as posting information on social media, donating money to charity or signing a petition.
“The standard model for this kind of event is you sell a ticket through Ticketmaster for $60 or $70 and a portion of that goes to charity,” Evans told Rolling Stone.
“We wanted Global Festival to be about action, not money. By thinking different about how we distribute tickets, we’re building a movement.”
