Dave Stewart will serve as music coordinator for the event. Additional artists are expected to be announced in coming weeks.

A People’s Concert will take place simultaneously at South Africa’s Green Point Stadium, alongside the SOS concert at Robben Island – where Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. The People’s Concert will broadcast live footage from the Robben Island event with many artists performing on both stages.

Nelson Mandela, host of the event, sent a cry of SOS to the world earlier this month, imploring a global community to address the HIV/AIDS crisis rampant in Africa.

Africa has been hit harder by HIV/AIDS than any other region of the world with more than 17 million dead from the disease and another 28.1 million infected with HIV. Currently, there are 11 million AIDS orphans in Africa and experts say without urgent action there may be more than 25 million by the end of this decade.

The Mandela SOS concert hopes to emphasize that it is time for the world’s people to rise above their differences and combine their efforts to fight what has become a tragedy of unprecedented proportions.

“HIV/AIDS is not only a health issue but has risen to become a human rights crisis,” Mandela said. “I am asking each person in every country not to be silent witnesses to this devastation but to answer our SOS by raising both awareness and the vital funds necessary to fight and win against this disease.”

Tickets to the concert are free and will be distributed by competition or lottery, details of which will be announced shortly. There will be live coverage of the event on mandelasos.com, as well as a global TV broadcast.