What The Busking Contest del Tigullio is and why it is unique in Italy
Italy has many music festivals. It has local celebrations, summer concert series, open-air stages. But a contest dedicated exclusively to street musicians — buskers, those who perform with a hat in front of passers-by — there is only one: this one. Born in 2022 on the Gulf of Tigullio, The Busking Contest reached its fourth edition in 2025 with an absolute record: 203 participants from across Italy. A growth that says a great deal about the ability of this format to reach a musical world that rarely finds space in official circuits.
The idea is as simple as it is powerful: take street musicians out of the pavement context and give them a real stage — the town piazza — with clear rules, a jury, and a final prize that genuinely matters. The Cappello Award is €1,000 in cash plus the opportunity to perform at the Ferrara Buskers Festival and Di Strada in Strada, two of the most important street music festivals in Italy. For a busker, it is a significant step up.
The qualifying rounds take place in the piazzas of Rapallo and Chiavari throughout July and August: multiple evenings, multiple squares, ongoing music. Participants arrive from across Italy bringing different genres — folk, blues, jazz, singer-songwriter, world music, acoustic rock — and perform in front of both the public and the jury. This is not a constrained performance: it is busking in its most authentic form, set within a competitive framework. The semi-finals and grand final are held in Lavagna's Piazza Marconi, which at the climax becomes one of the most unusual and involving open-air concerts on the entire Riviera.
The Busking Contest format works because it manages to be both authentic and accessible at the same time. No booking needed, no ticket: arrive in the piazza, find a musician performing, and stop. Or keep walking and find the next one. It is the logic of busking transported into festival form — and in Rapallo, where the piazzas and the seafront lend themselves perfectly, the result is a town that plays music for weeks.
What to expect in practice
The contest unfolds over multiple weeks. The qualifying rounds are evenings distributed across Rapallo and Chiavari's piazzas — you can stumble upon them by chance or go deliberately. The atmosphere is that of busking: informal, festive, open. Musicians perform in public spaces while people walk past, stop, applaud, move on. Anyone staying in Rapallo can catch multiple qualifying evenings simply by going out for a walk in the evening.
The final in Lavagna is the highlight: Piazza Marconi fills up for what is effectively a full concert, except that the performers are musicians who have grown up on the streets. From Rapallo, 15–20 minutes on a regional train is all you need.
