Global Citizen Live was the 2021 instance of the

Global Citizen Festival The Global Citizen Festival is an annual music festival started in 2012 and organized by Global Poverty Project. It was founded by Ryan Gall and Hugh Evans. Gall said he was inspired by visiting Austin City Limits and seeing the branding on th ...

, so named because it was broadcast live internationally from cities across six continents around the world on 25 and 26 September 2021.

Background

Global Citizen has held an annual music festival since 2012, one of the organization's main events to raise awareness of

global poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse

and

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

; founded in 2008, it aims to end poverty by 2030. The live 2021 festival, held across six continents, was the largest, as part of Global Citizen's 2021 Recovery Plan for the World program. Added to the festival mission was an aim to help bring an end to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, with a focus on vaccine equity. It was timed to occur during the

G20 summit G, or g, is the seventh letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''gee'' (pronounced ), plural ''gees''. The lowerc ...

and

UN general assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 79th session, its powers, ...

meetings. Global Citizen had held "Vax Live: The Concert To Reunite The World" earlier in 2021.

Festival

Compared to

Live Aid Live Aid was a two-venue benefit concert and music-based fundraising initiative held on Saturday, 13 July 1985. The event was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise further funds for relief of the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia, a m ...

and one of the biggest international charity events ever, the festival featured live global performances from some of the world's top recording and classical artists across various cultures. More than 60 artists were scheduled to perform.

Simon Le Bon Simon John Charles Le Bon (born 27 October 1958) is an English singer. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the new wave band Duran Duran and its offshoot Arcadia. Le Bon has received three Ivor Novello Awards from the Briti ...

, who performed with

Duran Duran Duran Duran () are an English pop rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor (bass guitarist), John Taylor. After several early changes, the band's line-up settled ...

at both Live Aid and Global Citizen Live, said that the intention of Live Aid had "diminished in people's minds" and become forgotten. The band's bassist

John Taylor John Taylor, Johnny Taylor or similar is the name of: Academics *John Taylor (Oxford), Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, 1486–1487 * John Taylor (classical scholar) (1704–1766), English classical scholar *John Taylor (English publisher) ...

said that Global Citizen Live was the closest thing to Live Aid in the age of

streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

, and would not be possible without Live Aid and Band Aid creating the precedent. Global Citizen estimated that tens of thousands of people would attend the in-person events, and millions would watch the live broadcasts. Tickets were free, and awarded at random to people who shared Global Citizen campaigns through their app; attendees had to prove either a negative COVID-19 test or vaccination against it. The organization does not aim to raise money with the festival, but encourage people to take action - and pressure leaders to take action - on

global issues A global issue is a matter of Social issue#Types of social issues, public concern worldwide. This list of global issues presents problems or phenomena affecting people around the world, including but not limited to widespread social issues, econ ...

. However, prior to the festival, Global Citizen reaches out to corporations, organizations and even nations for financial and material pledges towards reaching its aims, which are then announced between performances during the festival. The

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of Royal family, royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobi ...

and Duchess of Sussex made an appearance at the New York event, calling for global vaccine equity.

Performances

Several performances were pre-recorded. Some locations did not have live events open to the public, but were broadcast live. The live performances were held over the 24 hour period beginning at 1pm on September 25 in New York. ''Sources:''

Appearances

Politicians and leaders

Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was the South Korean minister ...

Xavier Bettel Xavier Bettel (; born 3 March 1973) is a Luxembourgish lawyer and politician who serves as the List of deputy prime ministers of Luxembourg, deputy prime minister of Luxembourg and as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Luxembourg), minister for Fo ...

Chris Coons Christopher Andrew Coons (born September 9, 1963) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from Delaware, a seat he has held since 2010. A member ...

Bill de Blasio Bill de Blasio (; born Warren Wilhelm Jr., May 8, 1961; later Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm) is an American politician who was the List of mayors of New York City, 109th mayor of New York City, mayor of New York City from 2014 to 2021. A member of t ...

Mario Draghi Mario Draghi (; born 3 September 1947) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, banker, statesman, and civil servant, who served as the prime minister of Italy from 13 February 2021 to 22 October 2022. Prior to his appointment as prime mi ...

Meryame Kitir Meryame Kitir (born 20 April 1980) is a Belgian politician of the Forward party who served as the Minister of Development Cooperation and Urban Policy in the De Croo Government from October 2020 until December 2022, although the last two months ...

David Malpass David Robert Malpass (born March 8, 1956) is an American economic analyst and former government official who served as President of the World Bank Group from 2019 to 2023. He previously served as Under Secretary of the Treasury for Internatio ...

Micheál Martin Micheál Martin (; born 16 August 1960) is an Irish Fianna Fáil politician serving as Taoiseach since January 2025, having previously held the position from 2020 to 2022. Martin served as Tánaiste, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Min ...

Strive Masiyiwa Strive Masiyiwa (born 29 January 1961) is a London-based Zimbabwean billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairman of international technology groups Econet Global and Cassava Technologies. Masiyiwa has p ...

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of India, prime minister of India since 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Par ...

Nancy Pelosi Nancy Patricia Pelosi ( ; ; born March 26, 1940) is an American politician who was the List of Speakers of the United States House of Representatives, 52nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives, serving from 2007 to 2011 an ...

Andrej Plenković Andrej Plenković ( ; born 8 April 1970) is a Croatian politician serving as the Prime Minister of Croatia, prime minister of Croatia since October 2016. He was previously one of eleven List of members of the European Parliament for Croatia, 201 ...

Pedro Sánchez Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón (; born 29 February 1972) is a Spanish politician who has served as Prime Minister of Spain since 2018. He has also been Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) since July 2017, having p ...

Chuck Schumer Charles Ellis Schumer ( ; born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from New York (state), New York, a seat he has held since 1999. ...

Erna Solberg Erna Solberg (; born 24 February 1961) is a Norwegian politician and the current Leader of the Opposition. She served as the prime minister of Norway from 2013 to 2021, and has been the leader of the Conservative Party of Norway, Conservative Part ...

Aaditya Thackeray Aaditya Uddhav Thackeray (born 13 June 1990) is an Indian politician who served as a Cabinet Minister of Higher Education, Cabinet Minister of Tourism and Environment for the Government of Maharashtra. He is also an MLA of the Maharashtra L ...

Ursula von der Leyen Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (; ; born 8 October 1958) is a German politician, serving as president of the European Commission since 2019. She served in the Cabinet of Germany, German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding position ...

Conservationists

Jane Goodall Dame Jane Morris Goodall (; born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall; 3 April 1934), formerly Baroness Jane van Lawick-Goodall, is an English zoologist, Primatology, primatologist and Anthropology, anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremo ...

* Monja Cohen *

Sadhguru Jagadish "Jaggi" Vasudev (born 3 September, 1957), also known as Sadhguru, is an Indian guru and founder of the Isha Foundation, based in Coimbatore, India. The foundation, established in 1992, operates an ashram and yoga centre that carries ...

Entertainers

Amitabh Bachchan Amitabh Bachchan (; 11 October 1942) is an Indian actor who works in Hindi cinema. He is often considered one of the greatest, most accomplished and commercially successful actors in the history of Indian cinema.* * * * * With a cinemati ...

Broadcast

The festival was broadcast around the world and was available to livestream on various platforms. *

Nine Network Nine Network (stylised 9Network, and commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of the five main free-to-air television ...

in Australia * VRT in Belgium *

Multishow Multishow is an entertainment channel owned by Canais Globo, Grupo Globo's cable and satellite television channel operator. It was launched in 1991, as one of the company's first four channels (with Telecine, Top Sport – now SporTV – and GNT ...

and Bis in Brazil *

Caracol Televisión Caracol Televisión () (known as Caracol and previously as Canal Caracol) is a Colombian free-to-air television network owned by Caracol Medios, a unit of Grupo Valorem. It is one of the leading private TV networks in Colombia, alongside Canal ...

in Colombia *

TF1 TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network. TF1 is part ...

and

TMC TMC may stand for: Companies and brands *Thinking Machines Corporation, a defunct supercomputer company *Toyota Motor Corporation, a Japanese automobile manufacturer *Toshiba Memory Corporation * Trans Mountain Corporation *Transportation Manageme ...

in France and Monaco *

Zee TV ZEE TV also known as Z TV is an Indian Hindi language general entertainment pay television channel owned by Zee Entertainment Enterprises. It was launched on 1 October 1992 as the oldest privately owned television channel in India. History ...

in India *

NET NET may refer to: Broadcast media United States * National Educational Television, the predecessor of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States * National Empowerment Television, a politically conservative cable TV network ...

in Indonesia *

Sky Uno Sky Uno () is an Italian entertainment television channel, based on the defunct reality television channel ''SKY Vivo'', both owned and operated by Sky Italia. It broadcasts Italian dubs of the shows ''The X Factor'', '' Got Talent'', '' The Ap ...

and TV8 in Italy *

TV Azteca Televisión Azteca, S.A.B. de C.V., commonly known as TV Azteca, is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate owned by Grupo Salinas. It is the second-largest mass media company in Mexico after Televisa. It primarily competes with Televisa as well as so ...

in Mexico *

SABC The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the public broadcaster in South Africa, and provides 19 radio stations (Amplitude modulation, AM/Frequency modulation, FM) as well as 6 television broadcasts and 3 OTT Services to the general ...

in South Africa *

RTVE Play RTVE Play (often stylized as rtve play) is the over-the-top media service provided by the Spanish public broadcaster RTVE. It was launched in Spain on 22 June 2021, replacing the old catalogue 'RTVE a la carta', created in turn in 2008. History ...

in Spain *

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

in the United Kingdom *

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

(live) and FX in the United States The television broadcast in the United Kingdom was stopped for a period to show ''

Strictly Come Dancing ''Strictly Come Dancing'' (commonly referred to as ''Strictly'') is a British dance contest show in which celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly Ballroom dance, ballroom and Latin dance, Latin dance. Each couple is ...

'', but all performances were available via the

BBC iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available Over-the-top media service, over-the-top on a wide range of devices, including Mobile phone, mobile phones and Tablet computer ...

. Broadcasting live to the same feed from six continents and the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

posed a technical challenge described as "once in a generation".

Notes

References

{{reflist 2021 concerts 2021 television specials Music television specials Cultural responses to the COVID-19 pandemic Television shows about the COVID-19 pandemic Benefit concerts COVID-19 pandemic benefit concerts Music festivals in New York City Music festivals in Germany September 2021