Global Citizen Festival: a mash-up of music fans, bands and prime ministers

By K.Y.W. | NEW YORK

BEFORE digital connectivity, non-profit organisations benefited from concerts that solicited donations and touted their causes. The 1971 Concert for Bangladesh raised money for UNICEF; 1985’s Live Aid sent famine relief to Ethiopia, and since 2004, the Black Ball has collected millions to fight AIDS. Now the charity concert model is changing. Millennials prefer festivals to black-tie affairs, and use social media to advocate instead of swiping a credit card.

One example of this new method of advocacy is the Global Citizen Festival, a concert held in New York City each September to promote awareness of extreme poverty. The festival’s model is a digital facelift of the 1980s movement-building efforts of Amnesty International and an indirect descendant of Bono’s ONE campaign, which pioneered online advocacy for the development sector in 2004. Each year, the Global Citizen Festival distributes 60,000 tickets; fans can earn entrance by completing online “actions” such as signing a petition or tweeting at world leaders about vaccines, access to education and clean water. The internet chatter is intended to force politicians to make commitments to fight poverty in Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America. Is it effective?