Global Citizen Festival returns to New York City's Central Park with focus on ending extreme poverty

NEW YORK -- Global Citizen Festival is back, returning to New York City's Central Park's Great Lawn, on Saturday.

The 12th installment of the Global Citizen Festival features some of the most influential figures from the entertainment industry, leading policymakers, and passionate activists.

They urged world leaders to take urgent action to End Extreme Poverty NOW.

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This year's musical line-up was headlined by Post Malone, Doja Cat, LISA, Jelly Roll, Rauw Alejandro, Benson Boone, and RAYE.

"For the first time ever, the Global Citizen Festival is entirely powered by battery. This is pioneer in the music industry," said Michael Sheldrick, one of the event's co-founders. "We know it's not enough just to talk about taking action on climate change and being more sustainable. We know that through the power of our example, we can also make a difference."

Global Citizen Ambassador Hugh Jackman returned to host the festival for the seventh time.

UN Messenger of Peace, Dr. Jane Goodall (founder of the Jane Goodall Institute) and Chris Martin of Coldplay, who is also the Global Citizen Festival Curator, also made special appearances as speakers.

The inaugural Global Citizen Festival took place on September 29, 2012, with 60,000 people in attendance on the Great Lawn in New York's iconic Central Park. The festival featured live performances by Neil Young with Crazy Horse, Foo Fighters, The Black Keys, Band of Horses, K'Naan and more. Since then, artists like Rihanna, Beyoncé, JAY-Z, Pearl Jam, Stevie Wonder, Coldplay, Billie Eilish, and many more have performed on Global Citizen Festival stages around the world.

Global Citizen Festival is timed to coincide with the UN General Assembly to leverage opportunities to get policy and financial commitments from government, corporate, and philanthropic leaders to defeat poverty, demand equity, and defend the planet.

Global Citizen says it is the world's largest movement of action takers and impact makers dedicated to ending extreme poverty NOW.

Global Citizens have taken over 33.5 million actions since 2009. Those actions in combination with high-level advocacy work have led to over $43.6 billion being distributed to Global Citizens' partners around the world, impacting 1.29 billion lives in the fight to end extreme poverty.

You can learn more at www.globalcitizen.org/en/impact