Benefit concert
Subjective objectives include raising awareness about an issue such as misery in Africa (such as Live 8) and uplifting a nation after a disaster (such as America: A Tribute to Heroes).
[1] Scholars theorize that the observed increase on concert size since the Live Aid is happening because organizers strive to make their events as big as the tragedy at hand, thus hoping to gain legitimization that way.
In 1749, the composer George Frideric Handel wrote his Foundling Hospital Anthem, and put on annual performances of Messiah, to support an orphans' charity in London.
[4][5] The modern understanding of a benefit concert is of a large-scale, popular event put on to support a charitable or political cause.
Comprising two shows on the same day at Madison Square Garden, it was organized by and starred George Harrison and Ravi Shankar.
The format of most modern benefit concerts, involving many acts, was pioneered in 1985 with Bob Geldof's Live Aid.
[1] Benefit concerts are a major example of celebrity charity for they involve popular musicians; actors and actresses; and other kinds of entertainment figures volunteering to a greater cause.
His thesis explains that it is more beneficial to a cause that celebrities do not contribute by only donating their money, but by participating in event like benefit concerts.
Celebrities not only promote catalytic philanthropy, they can produce an effect some call Geldofism: "The mobilization of pop stars and their fans behind a cause.
These critiques argue that concerts like the Live Aid "rob Africans of agency, reinforces Western ethnocentrism and racisms and see famine as a natural disaster rather than as a political issue".
[13] Benefit concerts are an effective form of gaining support and raising funds for a cause because of the large media coverage that they usually receive.
[15] Dayan and Katz define media events as shared experiences that unite viewers and call their attention to a particular cause or occasion.
[15] Benefit concerts, therefore, have the potential to raise enormous sums of money for a cause because of the para-social interaction that occurs between the performing celebrities (the leaders) and the spectating fans (the people).
