Central Park Fest Caused $205K+ In Damages Before 2023 Mayhem: Records

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY - The annual charity concert held at Central Park last year that made national headlines for fully destroying a third of the Great Lawn and causing more than $600,000 in damage has contributed to hundreds of thousands of dollars more in damages to the park in the years leading up to 2023’s mayhem, Patch has learned.

Records obtained by Patch show the Global Citizen Festival — the marquee event of the nonprofit advocacy organization Global Poverty Project — has repeatedly been issued damage fees dating back to at least 2018 over "failure to perform its restoration obligations" in accordance with agreements with the city.

The recurring damage, capped by the September 2023 festival's unusually high damage bill, has prompted the Central Park Conservancy — the nonprofit that oversees the park — to discourage similar large events from being held on the lawn, officials said.

The NYC Parks Department, however, has no plans on barring the festival from the venue in the future.

"The city has had a positive relationship with the Global Citizen Festival producers for over a decade, and we are confident in their commitment to both minimize and remedy any impact on the lawn in the future," a spokesperson for NYC Parks said in a statement.

"Every large event causes some impact on the site regardless of whether it is in Central Park, Flushing Meadows, or any of our parks that host large events of this kind. Parks works very hard with producers to minimize such impacts. As with every year, Global Citizen event organizers followed all permitting protocols and were responsible for all costs associated with damages."

Neither NYC Parks nor the Central Park Conservancy has issued formal warnings to festival organizers, but the latter group says it is working with NYC Parks to "develop new protocols that should help to minimize damage if future big events are impacted by rain, particularly around how and when the city might cancel the event because of inclement weather."

"It is always the city’s decision to determine whether the event should go forward or not," a Central Park Conservancy rep added. "However, as we have previously expressed, we continue to believe that events of this size and density do not belong on the Great Lawn."

Global Citizen representatives, for their part, have maintained that extreme weather, high-volume foot traffic and heavy equipment contributed to the 2023 festival's bill, "by far the biggest bill that Global Citizen has had to pay," a spokesperson from the nonprofit told Patch.

The festival has drawn about 60,000 attendees each year since 2012, according to the festival's Instagram page. Performers in 2023 included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jungkook and Lauryn Hill, among others.

Related: Mayor On Central Park Festival Mayhem: 'Parks Belong To The People'

Less than two months after the 2018 Global Citizen Festival, city parks officials billed the Global Poverty Project over $65,000 for sod repair, range fencing materials and staff hours, documents show. The festival's 2019 charges appeared to show improvements, with a single-page bill addressing $4,300 in tree damage near West 90th Street and Central Park West.

The years after the COVID-19 lockdown, however, saw a resurgence in damage charges, with 2021’s bill amounting to $64,726 in seed, sod, fence and bench repairs. 2022's bill reported $70,901 in necessary repairs, including the replacement of the World’s Fair bench ($2,351), tree damage ($16,000), sod for lawn damages ($5,400) and seed for lawn damages ($47.15).

It was the nonprofit's largest damage bill for the festival to date.

That is, until as a crowd of thousands of festival goers maneuvering on saturated ground "damaged a large portion of the lawn and fully destroyed a third of it" last September, according to the Central Park Conservancy.

The Great Lawn was subsequently shut down early — the lawn is typically closed from November to April for maintenance — and is expected to reopen on April 6.

A Global Citizen spokesperson pointed Patch to NYC Parks officials' decision to go on with the festival despite the inclement forecast, as well as torrential rain that lasted for days after the Sept. 23 event.

"We didn't start the rain," the nonprofit rep said, adding the nonprofit paid the bill "in full" as in years past. The nonprofit also clarified that the damage fees were not covered by funds otherwise allocated for charitable actions.

A source familiar with the matter said Global Citizen’s Board of Directors privately stepped in to pay the bill for the damage incurred, most of which involved sod removal and replacement. The same source noted a third-party turf grass expert estimated that only 15,000 square feet of turf grass needed to be replaced, while Central Park Conservancy found that 300,000 square feet of turf grass needed to be replaced on the Great Lawn.

"The Central Park Conservancy is the third-party expert the City has relied upon for decades to care for and maintain this iconic destination," the caretaker organization told Patch in response to the turf grass discrepancy. "We are therefore uniquely positioned to assess and manage Central Park's lawns to the high standard the public has come to expect. In this instance, our comprehensive assessment of the Great Lawn indicated that a significantly larger area required replacement to ensure the Lawn’s long-term health and sustainability as well as its timely reopening for softball this spring."

In a letter to the mayor dated days after the festival, New York City Council Member Gale Brewer urged Mayor Eric Adams to cancel future iterations of the annual concert. Brewer also told The New York Times the repairs were estimated to cost about $1 million, while city officials later clarified to Patch that the bill amounted to $622,000.

"I have never been a fan of the Global Citizen Festival because so little, if any, of the grants are allocated to non-profits in New York City," Brewer wrote to the mayor's office last year. "However, I believe the festival brings in $2 million to the general fund. I urge you to schedule the Global Citizen Festival in a venue other than Central Park, such as an arena or stadium."

When asked about his response to Brewer’s letter at an October news conference, Adams squashed the possibility of the festival's relocation.

"We're not looking to damage the Great Lawn, but I don't want to damage the lawn in Prospect Park, I don’t want to damage the lawn anywhere," Adams said. "And so, the parks belong to the people and we should all share the use of the parks, and no park is better than the others."

In a statement to Patch, NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue said she looks "forward to joining thousands of New Yorkers and visitors out on the Great Lawn for this celebration of music and activism" at the next Global Citizen Music Festival on Sept. 28 later this year.

Global Citizen isn't pursuing alternative venues for the future, either.

"With any public space in New York City … there is always bound to be damage caused when the public gathers," the nonprofit spokesperson added.

"Since 2012, Global Citizen has always restored the Great Lawn to the condition it was in prior to the festival, always promptly covering the costs of any damages presented by the Central Park Conservancy. We remain committed to that obligation in the future."