If you’ve never heard of the Global Citizen festival, you truly are missing out. It’s an annual festival with great headliners–this year’s lineup included Green Day, the Chainsmokers and the Lumineers, and past years have featured artists like Beyonce and Rihanna.
In addition to the amazing headliners, there’s more reasons why the Global Citizen festival is great. There’s a way to get free tickets to this concert (yes, I said free!) and all you have to do is complete certain actions to get them, but let’s back up for a second.
Global Citizen is a great organization that has a main goal of ending extreme poverty. The Global Citizen Festival is just one of the ways that this organization aims to raise money and foster passion for their cause.
Every year, when the festival is coming up, you can go onto the app and take these “actions” to gain points. These actions include signing petitions, calling your local representatives about issues that may affect your area, or tweeting about hot-topic issues. Once you do all of these actions, you accumulate enough points and they automatically enter you into the raffle to win Global Citizen Festival tickets!
They have four different lotteries throughout the months coming up to the festival, and if you do win tickets, you get two free general admission tickets. It’s a really great system, you get to take political and social action and get rewarded for it too!
Honestly I was so into completing all the social justice actions that I forgot there was a concert at the end of it! The thing I love the most about this concert though, is that while you’re there, you’re surrounded with people with a love for not only the music, but also a passion to help the world become a better place. That’s something really unique to Global Citizen, and it makes you really appreciate all the good in the world. It’s a nice reminder that in an era with so much political turmoil and pain, caring and compassionate humans still exist, and you get to be with some of them at this concert. Even though there are thousands of people there, everyone has the same vibe and mindset that you do, and it’s an indescribable feeling.
I literally made four new friends when I went this year. We were standing on line, and one of my friends that I came to the concert with complimented this really cool-looking guy on his tattoo. From that point on, my group of friends and this cool guy’s group of friends became one. We danced together, sang together, and stood on the immensely long water refill line together, so basically we became best friends that day.
Not only are the people amazing that you meet at these type of concerts, but it’s a magical experience to hear so many amazing bands live. Live music, for me at least, nourishes my soul and makes me feel alive. It reminds me that the human experience is something enchanting, like honestly, where else are you going to have a huge group of people vibing over the same thing anywhere else?
Overall, this concert was a great experience through and through. In the midst of the musical acts, they had really well-known social activists come on and speak about their causes. It really opened my eyes on a lot of issues I didn’t previously know about, and I got to hear some music that will stick with me for a really long time. I highly suggest that next year, you enter to get some tickets to this festival, and I promise you will not regret it.