Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean will headline the 2026 Global Citizen Festival on the Great Lawn in New York's Central Park on September 26, and will use part of the night to mark 30 years of the Fugees album The Score. Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Lainey Wilson, Shaboozey and Tomorrow X Together fill out the bill, and organisers say more artists and guests will be added in the coming weeks.
The Global Citizen Festival is an anti-poverty benefit that has been staged in Central Park every year since 2012, when Ryan Gall and Hugh Evans founded it, and it draws crowds of around 60,000. Tickets are not sold the usual way. People complete an action journey in the Global Citizen app, earn points, and then enter a free ticket lottery or pay a $25 donation to take a seat outright once they qualify.
Money from those donations goes to the City Parks Foundation, which runs free programming in parks across the five boroughs, and to organisations working with homeless New Yorkers. Full-price tickets are also on sale. Hugh Jackman hosts again as the campaign's ambassador, with Rachel Brosnahan and Gayle King appearing, and Jackman said in a statement that the point of the day is music and advocacy together.
For Hill and Jean the Central Park set continues a year built around The Score. The pair have already opened the album's 30th anniversary with a London fan event, and they have said new music is coming. Hill has also taken her own Diaspora Calling festival to the UK for the first time this year.
Lainey Wilson and Shaboozey were confirmed separately, which puts country on a bill that also runs through hip-hop, soul and rock. No set times have been published. The date and the rest of the autumn's bills are in the festival tracker.
The facts
- The festival is on September 26 on Central Park's Great Lawn
- Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean headline and mark 30 years of The Score
- Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Lainey Wilson and Shaboozey are on the bill
- Tomorrow X Together also play, and more names are still to be announced
- Hugh Jackman hosts, with Rachel Brosnahan and Gayle King appearing
- Tickets are earned through the Global Citizen app's action journey
- A $25 donation secures a ticket once enough points have been earned
- Donations go to the City Parks Foundation and homelessness charities
How this checks out
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Background 1
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The Global Citizen Festival has been held in Central Park since 2012, was founded by Ryan Gall and Hugh Evans, and draws crowds of around 60,000
Source Wikipedia