Out and about

The second Cambridge Buskers' and Street Performers' Festival - various city venues from Weds 6th May to Saturday 9th May 2009

Busking has come a long way since the days when a kindly-looking gentleman clashed a couple of cymbals between his knee caps and made a bit of an oom-pah-pah with a variety of other instruments. On any given weekend you can find street entertainment as diverse as belly-dancing and beat-boxers, pan pipes and performance artistes adding colour to the streets of Cambridge.

And now, it's time to prepare yourself for an aural feast as in May we welcome back the best of the county's buskers and performers - the elite and the amateur; the accessible and the downright discombobulating! You'll find them all, at venues right across the city centre, plying their trade from 11am until 5pm for four days.

At the last count, we reckon there should be  close to 50 different acts playing at 28 locations around Cambridge - you'll even find buskers on the punts! And with so many performers, you can count on there being something to appeal to everyone.

For the kids there are magic acts, balloon animals, and break dancers; for lovers of the classics there are opera singers, solo artists and orchestras; plus a great mix of jazz, soul, funk, world music and dance, and something called pre-apocalyptic psychedelic pop (your guess is as good as mine!); and then there's the plain weird including a man who plays a guitar in a dustbin, a human statue and a mind reader - I'm not going to tell you where he's going to be - if you're looking for him, he should know it!

You can download the full programme for the festival from the official website. That'll help you work out who you want to see, and when and where you can find them. It also includes a form for you to vote for your favourite acts.

So come along, support them, and enjoy some of the best outdoor entertainment ever!

See it in pictures

Last year, the very first festival was a smashing success. Have a look at the photographs in our gallery for a taster of the masses of musicians and dancers who took to the city's streets in 2008: