About Street Musicians Festival

“Street playing and performing at the squares is their lifestyle but also the recognised art form which has its own festivals and other means of expression throughout the world.”

Ever since 2000, the citizens of Novi Sad and their guests have been traditionally gladdened by the Street Musicians Festival which takes place at the end of summer and brings various artists from the national and international scene to the streets of the city. Street playing and performing at the squares is their lifestyle but also the recognized art form which has its own festivals and other means of expression throughout the world. As from the beginning of a new millennium, the capital of Vojvodina has found its place on the map of regular annual street art gatherings visited by the most famous street musicians in the world who perform and participate in other prestigious festivals in Europe and worldwide. Thus, they are bringing the culture and the spirit of their communities to this territory in order to exchange them with the local street art enthusiasts and other performers.

This year’s 15th anniversary edition of the Street Musicians Festival will be held from 3rd to 5th September, in Novi Sad, when same as every year, in the spirit of street art and the artists’ home, regional and world culture, it will breathe a new, fresh energy into the City.

The Street Musicians Festival was held for the first time in 2001 and ever since that time, it has been organized regularly, every September, observing the same adopted principles of street art.

The old city centre with Baroque streets and squares is perfect for this kind of entertainment and the performance spots – at hand to the passers-by, overwhelmingly attract all generations. From its very start, the programme is divided in two sections – the national and international scenes. In such manner, numerous pearls of local and regional artistic scene are successfully promoted, which would otherwise remain in the shadow of overexposed showbiz stars if there was not for their performance at the Festival. On the other hand, in the past few years, a number of most prominent artists from the street art scene from all five continents have performed in Novi Sad, such as Malabar, Leo Bassi, Playing for Change, Hayseed Dixie, Ramon Kelvink Jr, Baengditos, Helix, Voala, The Von Trolley Quartet, Perpetuum Jazzile, Etoiles De Essaouira, Cosmic Sausages and many others.

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Successful and pleasant right from the very start, the Street Musicians Festival received the most prestigious international award in 2012. After winning the “European Cultural Festivals” competition of the European Commission, this event obtained the status of the European festival, as the first and the only one in Serbia up to this day.

Therefore, numerous opportunities for further growth and development of this event emerged, making the programme better every year although the general feeling after each season is that “it cannot get any better than this”. Aware of its role in its community and beyond, in 2012 the Festival assumed a humanitarian character aiming to cultivate the environment even more. A large number of activities during the preparation period as well as the activities during the festival programme itself were intended for the socially vulnerable fellow citizens who sorely need such support, chiefly children working and living on the streets. With the assistance of the European Commission, a great regional project entitled “Circus as a Way of Life” was initiated in 2013, providing the participants with an active entrance into the world of street spectacle through workshops, training and public performance at festivals across Europe.

The Street Musicians Festival was visited last year by 70,000 people in three days, and all shows were, as usual, free of charge.

Versatility of the Street Musicians Festival brings to Novi Sad ever larger number of tourists each year, both from our country and from abroad. The “Tourist Flower” Award which was granted to the Festival in 2007 by the Tourist Organisation of Serbia in the category of “Cultural and Tourist Events Promoting Tourism” shows how precious this Festival really is. Due to its attractive programme as well as the great effort of all those involved in the organization, the Street Musicians Festival was visited last year by 70,000 people in three days, and all shows were, as usual, free of charge. In the meantime, in 2009, Borislav Beljanski, the founder and the director of the Festival, received a prestigious reward for his overall contribution to the culture and his activities referring to the organization of this event – the November Charter of the City of Novi Sad.

The Street Musicians Festival is organized by “Inbox” Art Association from Novi Sad, which upgraded the original concept of the event and adjusted it to the contemporary business and communication tendencies in art and culture of the 21st century. In this sense, the Street Musicians Festival firmly takes one of the top positions in terms of similar annual events in Europe and as usual, invites you to come to Novi Sad on the second weekend in September.