Back on Sept 25th, the Global Citizen Festival took place in multiple cities across six continents which was billed as a 24-hour concert for the purpose of building global youth activism in addressing climate change, hunger, and poverty.
Viewing the packaged 1 hour viewing the concert on ABC, the festival boasted big acts from BTS, Doja Cat, Lizzo, and Billie Ellish. Stevie Wonder and Elton John who have done multiple activist concerts made appearances.
This large-scale charity music festival got me thinking of the past large-scale concerts to address major global issues. What came to mind is Live Aid in 1985 and Live 8 in 2006 respectively.
The original concept of Live Aid was to address the famine that was occurring in Ethiopia. In the mid-1980s. While Live 8 tried to build off the legacy of the original concert by addressing poverty within Africa. It should be noted that while Live Aid was favorable in TV ratings, the actual net donations sent to actual cause in Ethiopia has always had disputed numbers.
Yes, these concerts did bring awareness to the issues at hand, but after the concerts ends it will be difficult to keep the momentum of the issues Global Citizen is trying to address at a larger scale. While the artists that preformed did bring awareness of poverty alleviation, what will it take to keep the focus on addressing poverty and climate change among global leaders as the concert discussed. It should be noted the music festival took place the weekend before the yearly UN General Assembly meeting.
The Global Citizen Festival has now been a staple Music Festival in late September for past decade. The artists and sponsoring charities can bring light to the issues at hand, but it will take constant effort from regular citizens to address the issues of alleviating and poverty that Global Citizen addresses.
The Typecaster 