Please join us on May 30th & 31st for a full 24 hours of world-class entertainment, streamed right in to your home.
1. Tip the performers here: busk.co/worldbuskers/tip
The live-stream is free to watch, but tips are encouraged! We accept 15 major currencies, and support cards, PayPal and Google Pay. Tips collected will be divided evenly among the performers and are greatly appreciated!
2. You can also watch at www.twitch.tv/worldbuskers (<—the more people who watch through twitch, the better!)
3. Check out our Buskers page for a full list of performers, then head to our Schedule to see what’s happening when!
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PRESS RELEASE FOR THE WORLD BUSKERS UNITED FESTIVAL
The most amazing line up of talent on planet Earth.
World Buskers United is an international online event bringing that festival atmosphere back during the lockdown. With 24 hours of world-class entertainment from over a hundred of the best street entertainers in the world, this festival is like nothing that has gone before it.
As you can imagine, those wacky, unpredictable, freedom-loving street performers everywhere are going nuts during the lockdown, bursting with energy with nowhere to go. World Buskers United Festival has given them an outlet for their anarchy, and the opportunity to entertain the masses from the confines of their prisons homes.
During the World Buskers United’s initial ‘test’ festival in April, we saw unicycling in an overflowing bathtub, full-speed, blindfolded hurdling down a metal-spiked, flaming obstacle course, cheese-based magic from the home of one of the world’s top magicians, a pogo-stick stuntman who ended up over a fence into the neighbour’s garden, and dozens of other mind-bending, hilarious shows.
“People who know me know I can’t sit still,” said Karen Cecy, Co-Producer of the World Buskers United Festival, owner of Rock It Productions, and producer of the Port Credit Buskerfest in Ontario, Canada. “The week after Port Credit got cancelled, I realised I just had to do something, especially when I saw the need to support performers through this global pandemic.”
The festival is being co-produced by Rob Roy Collins from Covent Garden Entertainment, a UK-based company that hires street performers for events all over the world, from London to Dubai and beyond.
“I’m a Covent Garden street performer myself”, Collins says, “and have been for years. This is the first time I don’t have a pitch to perform on. All my friends are struggling right now, and it’s driving me a bit crazy. So the moment I heard that Karen wanted to do something this nuts, I jumped on it. It’s exactly the energy we all need right now.”
World Buskers United Festival teamed up with The Busking Project, a non-profit organisation that has created an online tipping platform for street-performers, to collect online donations that will be split among all the performers. The performers themselves (and the MCs introducing the shows) are using their skills learned on the street both to entertain and inspire their audience to donate.
“All artists have been devastated by the lockdown,” says director of The Busking Project, Nick Broad, “but none more so than street performers. They rely on vibrant tourism, thriving high streets, large, shoulder-to-shoulder crowds and cash donations, none of which will exist any time soon. To be honest, what the World Buskers United Festival is doing is more than just entertaining, it’s creating a lifeline for an entire community.”
World Buskers United Festival is run by a team of dedicated (and very sleep deprived) volunteers. Lukas Stark is the technical director charged with combining the streams from a truly international lineup of performers streaming shows from their homes on six continents. During the last festival Stark didn’t sleep, but still managed to do his mentalist magic show. “What can I say, I love putting on shows,” Stark said, “and if I can help performers all over the world for 24 hours, sleep can wait.”
The shows will be streamed on the World Buskers United Twitch profile, which is free to watch but voluntary donations will be encouraged (just like in the street!). The performers get just 10 minutes to amaze with their best tricks, stunts and jokes, before the MCs move us on to the next show.
“The funny thing is,” Cecy said, “that this lockdown has provided us with a real opportunity. Now that everyone’s streaming from home, I’ve been able to put together a line up of talent I could only dream of when producing physical festivals. We’ve hand-picked literally our favourite performers in the world. There was nobody we couldn’t get. I mean, every festival advertises they have ‘the world’s best street performers’, but this time it’s actually true.”
The first World Buskers United Festival was a fantastic success, happening over 24 hours between April 25th and 26th. It was a first-of-its-kind experiment stitching together over a 100 shows and ironing out kinks in the technology. Over 30,000 people tuned in (not bad for a first festival), a number the the team hopes to smash now that they’ve perfected the format.
“It looks like every street festival in the world has been cancelled,” Collins said, “except this one. So bring your kids, your smiles and your applause. Because we’re back.”
Website – worldbuskersunited.com
Facebook – facebook.com/worldbuskersunited
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