Can you stop a crowd in their tracks with your performance? Can your performance transform a city square into a stage and turn strangers into a cheering crowd? If so, Carnaval Sztukmistrzów is calling your name.
About the Event
We’re inviting all buskers and street performers to apply for this year’s edition of Carnaval Sztukmistrzów! Up to 10 unique acts will be selected to perform in Lublin’s most iconic spots between 24–27 July 2025. The best act — as chosen by the audience via online voting — will receive a cash prize of 3,000 PLN!
Why apply?
For 15 years, our festival audience has embraced buskers with enthusiasm, flocking to the shows and filling hats with generous donations. Over 100,000 people attend Carnaval Sztukmistrzów each year. Selected artists will be included in the official festival programme and promoted in printed materials as well as across the festival’s social media.
What We Offer
- Performing at Carnaval Sztukmistrzów 2025 is an opportunity to share your talent with thousands — and we make sure you’re supported every step of the way.
- We provide the stage — you bring the show. Performers must be technically and logistically self-sufficient. We offer a performance space and basic technical support (portable speaker + microphone).
- We take care of you. All selected artists receive free accommodation and meals during the festival.
- Travel reimbursement is available — up to 600 PLN for travel within Poland and up to 600 EUR for international artists (based on documented expenses).
- You’re in the spotlight. Artists will be featured in the official printed programme, on the festival website, and across Carnaval Sztukmistrzów’s social media channels — complete with descriptions of the show and your group.
You keep what you earn. As a street performance festival, we don’t pay performance fees, but we guarantee a minimum of two scheduled shows per day over four days, where artists can collect hat donations directly from the audience.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
If you agree to the terms and want to be part of the festival, complete the application form by 18 May 2025. Selected artists will be notified by 23 May 2025.
About
Carnaval Sztukmistrzów is Poland’s leading contemporary circus festival, a vibrant annual event in Lublin. Attracting large audiences of both locals and tourists, the festival showcases a diverse array of world-class circus arts, from captivating clowning and breathtaking acrobatics to juggling and illusion. The programme also includes engaging performances for children and live music events. As Poland’s most diverse performing arts festival, it uniquely hosts Urban Highline, the world’s oldest and largest urban highlining competition.
With most of the programme held outdoors and free to the public, Carnaval Sztukmistrzów brings high-quality performance art into the very heart of the city — making circus arts accessible and unforgettable. A few shows are ticketed and held under the big top or in theatres.
The 2025 edition will feature performances from international stars such as Gabriela Muñoz, whose show Julieta is a tender, comical portrait of a woman navigating aging and memory. Bursting with humour and zest for life, Julieta invites the audience into her tiny apartment — a space that becomes her entire universe. Through her daily rituals, we glimpse the stages of her life, watching her transform with tenderness and whimsy. The show draws inspiration from the real-life story of Muñoz’s great-aunt, adding an intimate, personal layer to an already enchanting performance.
Also featured in the 2025 programme is Winter, a genre-defying spectacle by the boundary-pushing collective My!Laika. Blending influences from literature, film, and music, this performance breaks every rule — and does it with masterful precision. What appears to be chaotic and absurd is, in fact, a tightly crafted celebration of the new circus form. Expect mysterious characters, poetic circus vignettes, and a web of interwoven stories that reflect on death, fleeting joy, and the quiet despair of facing global crises.
Stay tuned — more artist announcements are on the way!
Ticket sales begin mid-May.
Carnaval Sztukmistrzów
24–27 July 2025
Lublin – Old Town & Błonia near the Castle
Admission to most events is free | | Selected performances ticketed