Our Idea

The Busker’s Guide to the Galaxy will be the ultimate physical and digital resource for new and experienced buskers alike.

This isn’t your normal crowdfunding campaign. We’re not selling you something. We’re not creating an art-piece. We’re creating a tool that will help street performers with grassroots campaigning, in an effort to halt the tidal wave of anti-busking legislation sweeping the world at the moment.

The Busker's Guide to the Galaxy will start off as a transformative new section on our website, that could radically improve the lives of buskers worldwide.

Here's how it'll work. First, buskers will upload "content", just like how we all can write stuff on Wikipedia. Perhaps the busker will report when and where they've been fined. Or, perhaps an organisation wants to promote a petition to stop a council passing an anti-busking law.

Other content could be about the best amps or microphones to use in the street, books to read, festivals to apply to and so on. Or basic "edutainment" (education + entertainment) for non-buskers, like the surprising array of household-name celebrities who learned their trade on the street, or the historical impact of busking dating back millennia.

This guide will have the power to transform the way people see street performance, dispelling myths and revealing truths, while helping buskers to organise, earn, busk and defend their rights. It's going to be huge.

And, every year, we will publish a physical copy of The Busker's Guide to the Galaxy with all the best, most popular and latest information from the website.

Our motivation

Busking is more culturally important now than ever before.

Our high streets are dying, live music venues are closing, arts funding is down and commercialism has permeated almost every part of the music industry. Busking is a great, viable way for independent artists to make a living, but they're facing increasing criminalisation and a world that's simply not carrying cash any more.

In short; busking is more at risk – and more important – than it ever has been.

You may not think this will affect your life much, but probably some of your favourite performers started off as buskers: Ed Sheeran, Tracy Chapman, Robin Williams, Cirque du Soleil… an end to busking could be catastrophic to the arts, wherever you live.

That’s what motivates us. We are here to save busking from further decline.

We are...

A small, dedicated team:

The Busking Project is a non-profit organisation that has already created a website that is an incredible tool for street performers. It helps them:

defend their right to busk in the street

get hired for events worth over £100,000 a year

collect mobile payments (Apple Pay, PayPal etc)

sell music straight to their audience's phones

and a lot more.





And don't just take it from us...

We've been featured by organisations such as The Economist, The Guardian and the BBC.





Listen to what some buskers are saying about us:





We're also bringing this project to life with the help of some amazing partners, such as Keep Streets Alive, Berlin Street Music and the Busker Hall of Fame.





Now we've caught your attention...

In return for your support we've got together some great rewards, including busker tees, discounted pro accounts for the busk.co platform and a private busking show!













The People behind The Busking Project

We’re a tiny team (normally just four people!), but we love working with the busking community, we're hugely excited by this new project and we can’t wait to launch it with you!

Thank you for your support!