Status Active Years active 4 Dates 24 Sep 2016 | Genre Music festival Organised by Global Poverty Project Organiser Global Poverty Project | |
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Frequency Annually
(final Saturday of September) Inaugurated September 29, 2012; 4 years ago (2012-09-29) Location Central Park, New York City, New York, United States Similar Budweiser Made in America, Lollapalooza, KIIS‑FM Jingle Ball, iHeartRadio Music Festival, Rock in Rio Profiles | ||
Rihanna live at global citizen festival 2016
The Global Citizen Festival is an annual music festival established in 2012. Chris Martin, lead vocalist of Coldplay, is the current creative director of the event, and he will fulfill this role for the next 15 years.
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The festival is organised by Global Poverty Project, and is part of a continued movement to end extreme poverty by 2030. By contributing to charity acts on the website, including watching videos and signing petitions, fans can get free tickets to the festival. In addition, the organizers are striving to make the event "global" by live-streaming events in public locations. Since 2015, the goals of the festival have been closely aligned with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, a "set of seventeen aspirational "Global Goals" to accomplish by the year 2030.
2012
The 2012 Global Citizen Music Festival was held on September 29, 2012. The headliners included the Foo Fighters, The Black Keys, John Legend, Band of Horses, K'naan, and Neil Young & Crazy Horse.
2013
In 2013, the festival was held on September 28, 2013. The headliners included Stevie Wonder, Kings of Leon, Alicia Keys, and John Mayer. The event's major themes for the year were education, women's equality, global health, and global partnerships. The event was produced by Anschutz Entertainment Group and Diversified Production Services, with Ticketmaster serving as the event's ticketing partner.
2014
In 2014, the festival was held on September 27, 2014. The line-up included Alicia Keys playing a special piece of music for the show along with Palestinian and Jewish artists. Tiësto opened, followed by Fun, The Roots, Carrie Underwood, No Doubt - joined by Sting for a song, and Jay Z - whose set featured two duets with Beyoncé. The event was hosted by Hugh Jackman, alongside presenters Dianna Agron, Zachary Quinto and Erin Heatherton. Speakers at the event included Queen Silvia of Sweden, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of Norway Erna Solberg and US President Barack Obama via a pre-recorded video.
2015
The 2015 festival, which was held on Central Park's Great Lawn in New York City on Saturday, September 26, included performances by Beyoncé (joined by Ed Sheeran for "Drunk in Love"), Coldplay (joined by Ariana Grande for "Just a Little Bit of Your Heart"), Pearl Jam (joined by Beyoncé for "Redemption Song"), and Ed Sheeran (Joined by Chris Martin for "Thinking Out Loud"). Special appearances and speakers included Stephen Colbert, Hugh Jackman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Vice President Joe Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama. The show was broadcast live on MSNBC in the U.S. The Hong Kong free-to-air TV channel TVB Pearl aired the festival on the first day of Jan. 2016. An edited one-hour special aired on NBC in the U.S. on September 27 and the BBC One in the UK on September 28. The edited version also aired in Australia on September 30, on the Nine Network.
2016
The 2016 festival, was held at Central Park's Great Lawn in New York City on Saturday, September 24, and included performances by headliners Demi Lovato, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Major Lazer and Metallica as well as special guests Usher, Coldplay's Chris Martin, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Ellie Goulding, Yandel and Yusuf / Cat Stevens. Lovato replaced Selena Gomez, who was originally slated to be one of the festival's headliners, but had to pull out of the lineup due to mental health reasons. Special appearances and speakers included Chelsea Handler, Deborra-Lee and Hugh Jackman, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra, Salma Hayek Pinault and Seth Meyers. The event was broadcast live on MSNBC.
In addition, the 2016 festival was also hosted in Mumbai, India, where it was headlined by Coldplay and Jay Z. Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi made a short address to the crowd via video conference. Other performers included Demi Lovato, A. R. Rahman, The Vamps, Arijit Singh, Shraddha Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Ranveer Singh. Farhan Akhtar, and Amitabh Bachchan. There were also appearances by Indian film actors Shah Rukh Khan, Parineeti Chopra, Ayushmann Khurrana, and Arjun Kapoor, and cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar.