Meet Some Researchers
Marta Połeć
My interest in street performances began in 2012 with ethnographic fieldwork for my bachelor's thesis in management. I accidentally encountered street performers in the old town during my student exchange in Cracow. At that time, regulations for street performers were introduced, garnering the broader attention of the performers' community, urban space users, and media creators, which revealed an original, dynamically changing research topic.
I view street performances as organised cultural activities within urban environments. Such an approach includes various forms of performative street art, such as theatre, circus, music, dance, and visual arts. Over more than a decade of fieldwork, my focus has moved form informal street performances to street festivals, where the same street performances are integrated into formal organisational structures.
I am currently writing a book presenting street performances as a diverse, universal phenomenon, which is part of the careers of many performers and organisers of cultural activities. The book considers alternative organisations, organisational aesthetics, and humanistic management concepts. It will feature an ethnographic description of how street performances are organised in Polish and European cities. Moreover, it will outline the typical activities associated with organising street performances in different organisational contexts. The book will also detail the life cycles of street performances and street festivals, and highlight the typical career paths of street performers and festival organisers.
I am an assistant professor in the Department of Management at Kozminski University in Warsaw, Poland. I am a principal investigator of a research project: 'Organizational Ethnography of Festivals of Street Performers' (2021–2025, National Science Centre, Poland). I am a laurate of the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education scholarship for outstanding achievements, and the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage scholarship.
Nick Broad
Nick Broad is one of the world's leading busking experts. After moving in with a phenomenal New York subway violinist, in 2008 Broad began riding his bike around Manhattan filming the buskers he came across and publishing videos online. This passion for documenting the art form led to a round-the-world film trip in 2011, when he filmed and interviewed street performers in 30 countries on 5 continents, producing a coffee-table book and hundreds of YouTube videos with millions of views.
In 2014 'The Busking Project CIC' launched, a nonprofit devoted to solving the technological needs of street performers, which he co-founded with his life, Liliana Maz. Their website, busk.co, is used daily by over a thousand street performers worldwide to collect tips during street shows (and will be part of the marketing plan for this book).
Over the last two decades, Broad has: launched buskers.guide, a living archive of street performance that gets the world's busking activities and advocates working together; been a founding member and industry partner of the Street Music Research Unit, a collaboration of the few economists, musicologists and other academics who are actually taking an interest in busking; presented his own research into busking policy at a UN Habitat conference aimed at urbanists; helped advocates with legal battles over the right to busk in public spaces in Berlin, Boston, Galway, London, Melbourne, New York and multiple other cities; and his writing and work has been covered in publications like the BBC, ITV, CNN, the Economist, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, NME and dozens of other publications.
He has almost two decades working in multiple areas associated with street performance – as event booker, festival producer, fintech platform entrepreneur, researcher, organiser, activist and community leader. He now lives with his wife Liliana Maz, and their dog, Pisco. He is currently working on a book, How Buskers Changed the World, about the cultural impact street performers have on society.
Dr Meg Elkins
I am a senior lecturer in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT University. I am an applied and behavioral cultural economist. I examine the implications of creative culture for artists' careers and community development. My interest in Street Music research began with my interest in cultural economics that examines the economics of culture. I was working on a research project with the City of Melbourne investigating the economic impact of arts programs in Melbourne, this began research into artists' livelihoods. I was invited to participate in a forum exploring busking as an unexplored research area. This was also an opportunity to connect with The Busking Project whose work with advocacy and technology for buskers gave researchers a platform of access to a deeply underrated and unexplored art form. By integrating technology into the tipping process, The Busking Project expanded the opportunity for street musicians to create more sustainable livelihoods. Their platform is increasingly important for musicians as the digitisation of music recordings and the reduction in music venues has meant reduced streams of income.
COVID catapulted the digital revolution and this also transformed many street performers' practices. They now accept digital payments and leverage social media platforms to build followings beyond their physical locations. This digital extension creates new revenue streams and career pathways, with successful street performers sometimes launching professional careers after building initial audiences on the pavement.
My research examines the impact of cashless digital payments and factors that influence who gets tips and why. Alongside The Busking Project we worked with street musicians in situ to examine default options at the world's largest busking festival at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I have published research in the Journal of Cultural Economics and City and Society.
As advocates for street music research Professor Paul Watt (Research Lead of the Busking Project) and I sought to elevate research to a higher level by working with the International Journal of Community Music on a Special Issue, 'Busking: Community, Culture and Commodity.'
As cities recover and reimagine themselves post-pandemic, street performers will likely play an important role in reanimating public spaces. Their ability to create spontaneous cultural moments, attract foot traffic, and contribute to local identity makes them valuable contributors to urban recovery.
Through the Street Music Research Group, we gain a deeper appreciation for street performers not merely as entertainment but as essential contributors to urban vitality, cultural democracy, and creative economies.
I serve as a Non-Executive Director on the Busking Project's Community Interest Company (CIC) since June 2022.
Dr Daniel Bacchieri
I am a journalist, content producer, music curator and researcher with a PhD from Monash University, where I investigated the street music scene of Melbourne between 2019 and 2024. Since March 2025, I have been a sessional academic in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University. Previously, I studied at the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism (CUNY: The City University of New York, USA), where I am Alumni Fellow. I have a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil.
I am a Podcast producer/editor of 'Beyond Bourke Street: Melbourne Buskers in the Digital World' (as part of my PhD thesis), acquired by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA). I was awarded a commendation at the 2023 Victorian Community History Awards (Oral History Award category). I am a jury member of the Webby Awards (organised by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, IADAS) and the Australian Podcast Awards. Along with Professor Paul Watt (Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide), I am the co-author of a bibliography of street music literature for Oxford Bibliographies Online. In 2025, I was invited by the City of Port Phillip, in Melbourne, to be the street music curator of two stages at Acland Street, as part of the official lineup of St Kilda Festival, known as Australia's largest community festival.
In 2014, I applied my multitasking background to one independent project: StreetMusicMap, a gloabl research project on street music shared on Instagram. Since then, I have developed StreetMusicMap into a multimedia project, which has also been open to external collaborations (from street musicians themselves, friends and followers of the StreetMusicMap profile on Instagram) along with my production as a filmmaker and curator of the social media profile. By 2025, more than 1,900 artists in 102 countries had been shared on the StreetMusicMap Instagram account through videos I filmed and by more than 700 collaborators, each credited as a filmmaker.
Dr Ewelina Grygier
I am a musician and ethnomusicologist, affiliated with both the University of Warsaw (Institute of Musicology) and The Chopin University of Music.
My interest in street music began in high school at the turn of the 21st century. I played with friends on the streets of my hometown, Poznań (Poland), as well as during two month-long trips to Ireland.
This early experience led me to pursue studies in musicology and ethnology, which eventually deepened into a scientific exploration of street music. I wrote my doctoral thesis and later published the book Artist, Performer, Beggar: Street Music in 21st Century Poland and the Theory of Performance (Warsaw, 2024). The book draws upon extensive field research, including observations, conversations, and interviews with street musicians. My research on street music spanned from 2011 to 2018 and covered various locations in Poland, such as Gdańsk, Gdynia, Hel, Jastarnia, Katowice, Międzyzdroje, Poznań, Świnoujście, Warsaw, and Wrocław, as well as cities in Austria (Vienna) and Germany (Ahlbeck, Bansin, Heringsdorf). The book is divided into two parts: the first explores historical and theoretical perspectives, while the second delves into the characteristics and interpretation of contemporary street music.
In addition to my ethnomusicological work, I am currently engaged in interdisciplinary research examining the reception of street music within art and society.
Jessica Reia
Jess Reia is an Assistant Professor of Data Science at the University of Virginia, a Visiting Scholar at Fudan University in Shanghai, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Democracy & Technology in Washington, D.C. Before joining UVA, they were appointed Mellon Postdoctoral Researcher at McGill University and BMO Fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal in Canada. Reia held a two-year mandate as a member of MTL 24/24's first Night Council in Montreal, providing guidance on open data practices for the nightlife ecosystem. From 2011 to 2019, Reia worked at the Center for Technology & Society at FGV Law School in Rio de Janeiro, leading projects on access to knowledge, privacy and smart cities in Latin America and BRICS. For the past decade, their research and advocacy agenda has focused on technology policy and urban governance, resulting in publications in four languages.
Reia's new book, Urban Music Governance: What Busking Can Teach Us About Data, Policy and Our Cities, was published in April 2025. The book is based on a decade of fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro and Montreal and features a transnational exploration of busking. It examines the intricate limits of legality, data visibility, and resistance from the perspective of those working at the social and regulatory margins of society. Buskers have been part of our cities for hundreds of years, but they remain invisible to governments and in datasets. From nuisance to public art, this cultural practice can help us understand the politics of data collection, archives, regulatory frameworks, and urban planning. Busking also responds to underlying questions on the boundaries of the rights to the city and who has a voice in shaping how our cities are planned and governed.
They got interested in urban informal labour while working on various projects addressing the impact of digital technology on street vendors and underground music scenes in Latin America. A policymaker by training, Reia has been looking at how governments and scholars define valid data and use technology in evidence-based policymaking. Busking became a topic of interest because of its omnipresence in cities throughout history and its absence in scholarship and local policies that are not mere restrictions. By digging into archives and datasets, they saw the importance of studying barely visible informal cultural practices in an increasingly datafied society.