Officially Australia’s 2nd Best Busker!

The Australian National Busking Championships was in Cooma, a delightful wee town deep in the New South Wales side of the Snowy Mountains. I went into battle for the 2025 national title in November. It was a hard-fought battle, over two days.

It was a pleasantly gruelling competition - four 30 minute performances in a five hour window, plus a mainstage busk-off for the top three each night. Including setup and moving around and stuff, it was pretty much non-stop action!

On the first day, I was delighted to win first place in the final heat of the competition. As you can see from the photo below, I played it very cool.

Accepting my heat-winner’s trophy from ANBC head honcho Allan Francis and John Littrich from splendid folk band The Water Runners.

That meant I came back the next day on the sunday. I was worried my energy might be down after such a big first day, but I woke up in a determined mood. I shared a spot all day, alternating sets with slickly rehearsed folk-rock duo Denim, so I wasn’t particularly shocked when they went on to win the whole thing.

I was however quite shocked to take out second place, and am delighted by the opportunity to officially call myself Australia’s 2nd Best Busker.

To celebrate, I hit a recording studio in Sydney to lay down an acoustic record that captures the way I’m playing at my street shows. It’s coming up incredibly well and it’ll be out in time for you to buy yourself a copy at the Woodford Folk Festival, Tamworth Country Music and Fringe World shows ;)

Just me, being a consummate professional.