Rainy Festival Closes Central Park's Great Lawn Until April

The rain-soaked annual Global Citizen Festival, held Sept. 23 on Central Park’s Great Lawn in New York City, caused an estimated $1 million in damage to 12 acres and led to that part of the park being closed until at least April, sparking calls to move the event from the venue.

“I write to request that the Global Citizen Festival no longer be scheduled in Central Park,” New York City Councilwoman Gale Brewer wrote in a letter to Mayor Eric Adams on Monday. “The combination of heavy rain, foot traffic, and machinery used for staging destroyed one-third of the Great Lawn.”

Brewer said that despite being made aware of the potential for heavy rain, the festival featuring headliners Lauryn Hill and the Red Hot Chili Peppers went on “full speed ahead,” Brewer wrote.

“The Central Park Conservancy determined the extent of the damage necessitates immediate closure of the lawn for re-seeding,” she said in the letter. “As a result, 12-acres of public greenspace will be unavailable to New Yorkers until April 2024, or later, all to accommodate a one-day event.”

According to the festival’s website, the annual music festival is “where fans take actions toward ending extreme poverty in order to earn free tickets.”

The mission of the festival, held in Central Park since 2012, is to end extreme poverty, according to the website.

The New York Post reported that this year’s festival drew around 30,000 people, about half the normal size of the event, possibly due to the inch of rain that fell during the show.

In a statement to Rolling Stone, the Conservancy said it was "very disappointed that the iconic Great Lawn is now closed and unavailable for New Yorkers to enjoy this fall. The use of heavy equipment and intense foot traffic in the saturated conditions from the Sept. 23 concert damaged a large portion of the lawn and fully destroyed a third of it. Our team is now working to restore the lawn, hopefully in time to reopen this spring.”

Festival co-founder Simon Moss told the news outlet that organizers were very mindful of the weather forecast and explored ways to mitigate the weather's impact on the park.

“In consultation with the city, we identified some mitigation measures that we could take, including putting down more flooring and making sure that we had lots of messaging about both rain or shine and holding gates if necessary, and how to safely run the event,” he said in the report. “On the day of the show, we met every hour from 9 a.m. to say, ‘Are we good for the event to proceed?’ … They gave the go ahead to proceed, and we delivered a fantastic event that we’re really proud of.”