Just when we thought all things were wrong in the world with festivals—via the Coachella cruise—Global Citizen announces a free ticketed event to help stop poverty. The Global Festival will feature Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Foo Fighters, The Black Keys, Band of Horses, and K’Naan on September 23 at the Great Lawn in New York’s Central Park.

The idea behind this festival is great: Sign up and earn points by doing things that promote the cause for a chance to enter to win tickets. It’s easy—for the first three points you earn, and next five points, you get in the draw for an opportunity to win tickets. Points are given on the basis of how complex different actions are, so, for example, you might earn the following points for different actions:

• Watching a short video on an issue related to extreme poverty (1 point)
• Sharing a video about extreme poverty on social networks (1 point)
• Adding your voice to a petition (3 points)
• Buying Fair Trade products (3 points)
• Calling your representative in Congress (10 points)

What is even more interesting is that as more actions get added, you will be notified about content-based actions based on what issues you have already been interested in. This is a great idea in that it blends social media with activism.

It’s a huge step forward and a novel idea in creating incentives for people to give a shit about the world and its issues. While it is easy to be skeptical and focus on the fact that you can buy your way in via VIP tickets, (starting at $189.50) we think that it is a great idea and one that more organizations should use to get their issues heard.

The Global Festival is an initiative of the Global Poverty Project. Visit Global Citizen here for more information.