The opportunity to take Australia’s premier busking festival to the world is music to the ears of Cindy and Joel Jensen.
The brother sister duo behind the Gold Coast’s highly successful ‘Buskers by the Creek’ have always held a dream for developing the festival into a truly international event and thanks to the support of Sunshine Coast Council, that dream is set to become a reality.
Maya Gurry, Chair of Sunshine Coast Events Board said the Board were thrilled that event organisers Cindy and Joel believed the Sunshine Coast offered the best opportunities to grow their event beyond its current attendance numbers.
“With an abundance of Sunshine Coast busking talent to showcase, this event has potential for international growth, and would bring new commercial opportunities and visitation for the region in a traditionally quiet tourism period,” Ms Gurry said.
“This is a great addition to the cultural calendar thanks to Sunshine Coast Council support through the Major Events sponsorship program”.
It is a classic case of the Gold Coast’s loss being the Sunshine Coast’s gain, with Australia’s largest busking festival moving to Lake Kawana, Bokarina to become Buskers By The Lake on 31st October to 1st November this year. Attracting the cream of Australian busking talent, the multi award winning event had been previously held on the banks of Currumbin Creek since 2014.
In that time, the family friendly festival’s reputation grew steadily, along with the crowds, with Ms Jensen receiving hundreds of applications from domestic and overseas buskers to be part of the main two day event.
“Last year we had more than 300 local and international performers covering a wide and varied range of acts from music to dance, comedy to theater and contortion to unicycling and it drew crowds in excess of 20,000,” Ms Jensen said.
“But after six hugely successful years, multi award wins and a growing reputation as being one of the world’s best busking events, we’ve packed up and moved to a home that’s embraced our craziness, boldness, uniqueness and willingness to grow on an international scale in 2020 and beyond.”
“We could not have been more overwhelmed by the enthusiasm shown for the event by Sunshine Coast Council and Visit Sunshine Coast. It was a very easy decision to move the festival, especially with the opportunity to see it grow as we’d always envisioned.”
The festival will be a major economic driver for the Sunshine Coast in October, with its close proximity to Brisbane and the access to the Sunshine Coast airport.
“Our fans are constantly getting in touch wanting to know when and where it will be this year and they have given commitments to come to the Sunshine Coast to experience their favourite festival in its’ brand new location.” Joel Jensen said.
“Applications are now open via our website and we are looking forward to unearthing a whole new role call of local talent to add to the program and having the opportunity to bring new and exciting acts to Queensland to establish the Sunshine Coast as Australia’s busking capital.”
Visit Sunshine Coast CEO Simon Latchford welcomed the new international busking festival to the region. “We are excited to see the new music and cultural event, Buskers by the Lake, to be held on the Sunshine Coast. It demonstrates we are more than just lycra sporting events and showcases the diversity of our events calendar,” Simon said.
