Testimonials

Al Millar, Contortionist, Boston USA

“I like to think of busk.co as a Facebook just for street performers, not only a social connection, but a place to look for gigs and get help with political trouble. It’s really a one stop shop for a busker.”

Jack Shepherd, Musician, Sydney, Australia

The Busking Project is ABSOLUTELY essential to me as a busker. Forward thinking people, working ethically to try and support street performance, an art form that is both in danger and, as I see it, one of the purest expressions of joy in a free society. They’ve literally catered their service to my individual needs as a performer and sole trader, and asked for next to nothing in return.

Jamey Mossengren, The Unicycling Unicorn, Sydney Australia

The Busking Project has gotten me many gigs. Unfortunately, most of the recent ones have been cancelled due to Covid, but almost all of them are rescheduling me for 2021. They also reviewed my website and promo materials, and gave me so many good suggestions and ideas that I got hired by more festivals than I had in previous years. It means a lot to me that they care about us performers and want to help us succeed.

Denim Arcade, Atlanta USA

In an age where live, in-person performances have been canceled, we need some other form of revenue. The Busking Project has helped us to do that by receiving tips while performing for an online audience. For us, it means a way for our followers to support us during uncertain times. But for the greater community of performers, it means that our culture can survive.

Ambassador, Musician, Celje, Slovenia

Busk.co is a big motivation for me. I feel like I belong to some new family, not just being alone on the street, fighting for coins. Their project and new ideas give me both hope and the power to survive on the street every day. Now I can hardly wait for when that new tap to tip system that they are developing comes out. It will be a huge help for me. Rock on!

Maya and Brent McCoy, Her Majesty’s Secret Circus Show, Boston USA

As performers, busk.co is our go to resource for finding festivals to apply to—our major source of income. And as a producer, busk.co is THE way to get the word out to performers about our events. The Busking Project is the only organization advocating for street performers around the globe.

Flame Oz, Circus, Bristol, UK

With Covid, most performance artists have lost 100% of their income in the past 5 months. The digital shows we’ve done for our audiences all over the world have been an immeasurable benefit in these strange times, and having access to a digital pay system, right now, is not only important, it’s necessary. The Busking Project is a very important resource for our community of street theatre entertainers. It has so much up to date information for festivals, gigs and work opportunities, and it helps link people wanting to book entertainment in their area. A great tool and resource!

Charlotte Campbell, Musician, London UK

busk.co has been a huge help to me ever since I discovered it. Over the last year it has connected me with so many paid performance opportunities. It has also made me more discoverable to new fans; people who see me busking across London now find my profile on busk.co, and are able to send me tips, or to reach out about potential bookings. By creating a platform for buskers and performers, The Busking Project validates our profession and creates a positive community, which is so rare for self employed musicians and street artists.

It is refreshing to find an organisation that supports buskers and provides so much guidance and information for its users, as well as always looking for innovative ways to improve busker experiences, including helping to develop ideas for taking digital payments, as buskers begin to feel the crunch of a cashless society. I feel like The Busking Project is “on our side”—when so many things are against us.

Marc, Musician, London, UK

Fantastic source of information and help in an area where very limited resources are available. The Busking Project is like an HR resource for buskers: identifying opportunities, best practices and offering network support that is vital for the health of the industry.

Michiel Hesseling, The Flying Dutchmen, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Using the festival information that The Busking project supplied has helped me get gigs. I’m glad there’s an institute that thinks about how to be beneficial to buskers. I don’t know of any other organization that does that.

Pawl Wheel, Musician, Lafayette USA

I live and work in Indiana, America. This is a very conservative part of the world, despite being about 20 minutes from Purdue University. Most of the folks who respond to my busking efforts are happy to have me around (I’m a formally trained vocalist and guitar player). Sadly, others remain in the mindset that buskers are the same as beggars, tramps, and the homeless. Yes, some even believe public spaces are not for free speech, and certainly not for protesting. 

I’ve done enough traveling to know that the way it is here is not the way it is there, necessarily. Even so, I, like most humans, tend to need a reminder that the world is a big place. While the need for community is universal, as is the appreciation for excellent performance and cultural differences are as real and diverse as the ways there are to cook a chicken. I’m grateful for the perspective this group provides.

Sites like The Busking Project help performing artists, like me, with practical advice, encouragement and perspective. Many people on this site have decades of experience. They have their performance honed to a fine point. They are hard working artists who enjoy the freedom and thrill of busking. They discuss practical topics: What kind of sound systems work best? How and when do you pass the hat? Why do people sometimes heckle performers and how do you manage that? Where are the best places to busk? Are there rules, permits? Are the police here friendly and understanding?

It’s also a joy to be able to mentor those who are just starting out. Encouraging others is an uplifting thing. We are a community, we buskers. Never has community been more needed than now. Even as I am laying low during this COVID experience, I join with buskers in spirit as we navigate these strange days. This site makes this possible.

Coz Crawford, Producer of Turn The Tide Festival, Dymchurch, Kent

I’m a festival organiser. Busk.co has given me valuable insight into how buskers operate, and enabled me to search for, experience and book all kinds of performers I would never have been able to access from my small, insular hometown on the Romney Marsh, Kent. For me, the Busking Project represents ‘engagement for all’ with the arts, enabling all types of people, regardless of income or background, to experience a performance of some kind. Performers in high streets make a mundane place interesting—they bring life, colour and energy to areas that (in some cases) have become standardised and meaningless.

Paz, The Hockey Circus Show, Toronto, Canada

Busk.co served as a consolidated source of information and was the primary resource we used to adapt to the current Covid situation. Without the resources busk.co provided, our company would have had to invest a vast amount more time and finances to achieve the same goals. They helped our company convert to online payment systems during the pandemic. Their solutions have already been tried and tested within the community, so we had confidence that they’d work for us—essential when working under a limited timeframe. It was quick and easy to do, and benefits all of our company’s members and performers.

The Busking Project serves as the sole source of support, solutions and resources for our community, available at little to no cost to us. They are consistently evolving to meet our ever changing needs. They are a form of “community center” for buskers that is always welcoming, always helpful, and does not provide solutions with an intention of profiting from us and/or taking advantage of our need. This is rare, and it would be heartbreaking to lose it. Furthermore, The Busking Project offers support for cities and organisations that are looking for a reliable way to connect with our community and conduct business in a reliable and professional fashion. The facilitation is only just beginning and will likely be of great benefit to many parties in the future.

Molly Keczan, the Silver Starlets, Toronto, Canada

The Busking Project has given street performers from around the world an easy to understand, safe and trustworthy online payment platform. During the global pandemic, we have transitioned to performing shows online, and busk.co helped us accept payment and tips. We signed up for the “pro account” so that we could get a custom URL, to easily guide people to our payment options. They provided us with a custom QR code, which we posted across our social media, websites, online videos and email signatures. They really helped us get paid!

The Busking Project is a support group for a worldwide community of entertainers. If I have a question about busking in a certain country or town, need a festival to apply to, have a question about a performer, or if I need reliable information about bylaws or safety I know that I can reach out to the team at The Busking Project for help. It’s amazing to feel supported and know there are people out there looking out for me and my community. I know I have a place to turn to if I need help.

Joanna and Peter Green, The Wax Birds, New Zealand

We are about to venture out with music as our main source of income during a very uncertain economic climate, and need all the help we can get. We are looking forward to the tap to tip concept they are working on as there is nothing like this for us in New Zealand. Busk.co has helped us start building our online presence and has provided us with a source of income through online tips, which is vital in an ever-increasingly cashless society.

Brennan, Celtic Musician, Treorchy, Wales

As a classically trained musician, playing on the streets is a challenge. It’s a step out of my comfort zone of concert halls with “well behaved” audiences. If I can survive busking, I can go places. This may not sound like much, but to me it is a major thing.

I hate being around people, having to interact and communicate. Having said that, I know I have to. For me, busking is almost going cold turkey when it comes to social interaction, jumping in at the deep end. I can’t just put the phone down or stay off social media until I feel the danger’s gone, I have to face my ‘demons’. Yes, it’s a kind of cross training therapy for me.

I even feel utterly uncomfy doing things like online festivals. Maybe it’s an inferiority complex, or just the fear of having to interact with and reply to people. With more online events hopefully coming on, I’m hoping to overcome my dislike (well, let’s call it for what it is: a phobia) for Zoom-ing.

So, The Busking Project has helped me enormously during the covid lockdown. Rather than despairing at the prospect of covid killing any arts, music, theatres, I got down to recording my music, then using YouTube and busk.co as platforms to collect tips. The Busking Project helped me get over my fears by connecting with other people who are similarly passionate about street art. And they reaffirmed my views that street art is an essential part of city culture and city/town centre atmosphere.

I cannot wait for the tipping device to be released to go back onto the streets, and not just perform but advertise the art of busking.

If that’s not worth getting a donation for…

Michelle Tam, human statue, Israel

I totally rely on the festival lists I get from busk.co. I have got into many festivals because of it,and am eternally grateful for their help. Also, the QR code I was supplied helped in 2 festivals in Europe that I was in. Thanks so much, YOU ROCK MY WORLD.

Barney Musician, London, UK

The Busking Project has kept me abreast of ideas and innovations in this hugely important area of the arts, which generates income not only for buskers, but also for the country as a whole, playing a significant role in attracting tourists from abroad to visit the UK. It’s the first ever one-stop collective that supports and develops this industry. I recognise its value thus far and feel it has even more to offer given the opportunities.

Spikey Will, Man of Danger, Covent Garden, London, UK

In the last twelve months, for me The Busking Project have been, as always, a brilliant resource of centralised info about worldwide busking; great for advice on how to deal with covid restrictions, and what help there is for our kind of performers in our relevant countries; a source of potential gigs, listed right and relevant with no time wasting.

Brian Shankaruk, Vancouver Canada

People seem to be much more hesitant to give cash these days, so being able to receive online tips via The Busking Project has helped to maintain my income and support me more than I realised. It also made me realise that there is a bigger community of buskers out there. And now I can get tips and advice that I wouldn’t have had before I joined up.

Gordon McGlone, Musician, Dursley, UK

Busk.co helped me plan my future work, and has given invaluable insight into coping with Covid-19 and social distancing, as it is the only source of up to date, accurate information on street performance of which I am aware. The future of busking is at risk, and The Busking Project is key to keeping the art and craft alive—it is the difference between my future career on the street and doing nothing.

Rob Roy Collins, producer of World Buskers United Festival, UK

The Busking Project were instrumental in our success in running two 24hr global online busking festivals, in April and May 2020. They were able to help set up and assist with our online donations for all 100 of our participating buskers, and their resources and expertise generally were invaluable to us in unprecedented times.

The Dirty Boulevard, musician, Sydney Australia

The last 12 months has seen dramatic changes to street performance. There has been a steady decline in cash takings as the people increasingly pay for every aspect of their consumption with cards. Many people no longer carry cash at all—in fact they often go out of their way to apologise and tell me this!

Then the coronavirus epidemic struck, and the move to a cashless society accelerated. Whilst banned from busking for several months—as was absolutely necessary—I have returned to busking to find that most local people don’t carry cash!

So, here’s why a UK initiative is so important to me in Sydney, Australia.

1. Musicians are invariably the last to see government or other organisational support, either in good times or bad, so to be part of a global collective that offers acknowledgement and support for what I do is incredibly positive. Nobody else is doing this except The Busking Project! Unless you’re one in a million, the music/entertainment industry is not interested.

2. For several years, The Busking Project has been keeping members up to date on card or cashless payments. Pretty well at the mercy of the banks, this hasn’t been an easy innovation, but nobody else is doing this! None of the card reader/banks have come close to the notion of a fixed tip of $2, $5, $10 (pick your currency) except The Busking Project. A tip amount that’s still in the hands of the punter!

Anyway, you get the picture – it is imperative that The Busking Project continues!

Jonatan Haller, Lisbon, Portugal

The Busking Project for me is ‘the future’. It’s everything I needed to take my online presence to a real financial growth. It’s a work in progress, and I feel lucky to be part of it as it grows. As a full time busker in my twenties fighting for a career as an artist, I had a real financial crisis, where every penny counted. The Busking project helped me stay in touch with my fans during the coronavirus, helping me get donations through my profile.

Jiya da Chorona, chalk artist, New York, USA

Worldwide easy access to online tipping service with fairly cheap handling fee! Busk.co’s service is really convenient and made busking life a lot easier! The community of buskers are really good and the staff is working so hard for this community; it is very heartwarming. Hopefully it lasts for a long time and boosts up the street culture 🙂

Paul Watt, Ethnomusicologist, Melbourne, Australia

The Busking Project has helped me with my research by sharing data and experience, and by working towards future partnerships to better understand buskers and advocate for their rights. The Busking Project is the most important think-tank and advocacy organisations in the world. They are helping to create a creative community around the globe. Their expertise, passion and impact is not to be under-estimated.

Diana Carulli, (non-busking) artist, New York, USA

I am in awe of the progress busk.co has and is making that concretely impacts the lives of Buskers. Just knowing that The Busking Project exists to help Buskers inspires me to continue working in the public realm.

Katerina Repponen, Circus Artist, Finland

The Busking Project is a very important working tool for us. It keeps us updated with all the festivals, contacts and important news. They have helped us a lot. The monthly festival list, with all its contact information, is saving a lot of our time, so we can concentrate more on our artistic work. Also, they helped us to improve our promotional material to look more professional, and gave great advice on how to get more work. We were really happy that we found this website.

Mister M, Street Theatre Artist, Austria

Festival info, and especially moral support through these tough times, an open base, a community where I can even ask “stupid” questions, a relatively safe space.

Wacky Chad, Pogo Stick stunt man, Boston, USA

The Busking Project has helped out in so many ways with tips and amazing information. It’s practically a one stop shop for street performers. Even if I already know the information they provide, I can easily share it with other performer friends. The simplicity of how to receive digital tips is one example of a must for street performers that usually don’t know how to set that up. It’s like a Facebook for buskers, full of valuable information and tips, as well as a large community and network.

Malala Ricoy, Cirkompacto, A Coruña, Spain

Well, being a Spanish artist, it let me know much more about how busking works all over the world, and helped me meet artists from other countries, and know about busking formats, timing, the differences between our cultures, and how tips are better in one place or another. The Busking Project is a community, a professional network, very specialised, where all artists can look for advice from colleagues and peers all over the world.

Erich Sermon, dancer, Accra, Ghana

Greetings from Ghana…West Africa…. Busking in many ways have helped a lot of talented and upcoming artists. I hope this project goes far and is well appreciated worldwide. The Busking Project has created a lot of job opportunities for youth worldwide and its must be supported.

Bruce Lish, magician, New York

To connect with other street performers around the world. Swapping stories and learning from others has been very important to me. I’m looking forward to the tap-to-tip devices to take the already useful scannable QR code tipping system to the next level for our grateful audiences.

Sean O’Neil, The Wandering Minstrel, Roscommon, Ireland

The Busking Project has been a great advocate for street performers all over the world for quite some time.  As a regular busker, and with society using coinage/hard currency less, I now can have the facility to accept cashless tips.

busk.co is also a good source of information on rights and legislation, and they appreciate the value to everyday life of occasional street entertainment.  They have worked hard to create a network and build community on a shoestring budget.  I see the value of the work of busk.co increasing as we enter a future that is considerably darker than before Covid-19.  The streets need buskers and we need advocates like Nick and company.

The Famous Kate, Waterford, Ireland

The Busking Project has helped me to formalise my online presence and start thinking about my profile as a busker. It is the beginnings of an encouraging community for me. We are a relatively under-the-radar group of people, sometimes regarded as ‘bums’ or put in the same group as beggars by people who don’t often interact with us. But, we are self-employed and professional. I have my regulars; over last year I have moved from town to town on different days. I have become part of communities, part of the fabric, of several small towns. This is the feedback I get from my audiences. It is nice to see an organisation I can associate with who gives faith and credence to my trade.

Rick Giujusa, Musician, Edinburgh, UK

The Busking project has always helped me finding answers to my questions and doubts, especially in the last 12 months, when I started busking full time as a job. The whole project means a place where street artists can go and not be forced to deal with the world alone by themselves. so it means a lot!

This Maag, Street Entertainer, Berlin, Germany

busk.co is a great platform for the announcement of current festivals, and for exchanging ideas and advice, especially in time of the Coronavirus. It’s great that there are people with a lot of idealism who put energy and work into a community to give one of the greatest, most immediate and social art forms a larger base and community. Together everything goes easier!

Roan, Musician, Vancouver Canada

I am a Granville Island busker. I joined as part of their COVID19 plan to restart busking at the island. They said that we could set up QR codes to let people give us online donations, so busk.co has been a good thing for me. I now receive online money, which I never did before. The Busking Project puts my name out there, helping me to get gigs and additional work. If people are looking for musicians, the Busking Project gives them another place to try to find performers.