The Fringe Festival starts Thursday and people from all over Saskatchewan will be visiting Broadway, but this year they won't see any busking.

On the Fringe Festival's website where in years past a musician would find an application for a busking licence there was a different note.

"Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here," it said.

Festival Produce Robert Wyma said that it is not completely gone.

"We still have busking going on it is just a different kind of busking this year. It is based on performance art," Wyma said.

The street entertainment has been curated for this year's festival. They have brought in 10 professional performers from all over Canada to entertain on the streets.

"It’s first and foremost a theatre festival," Wyma said.

With that in mind festival co-ordinators chose to reflect a stronger theatre atmosphere for outdoors.

"We invite people to come down and discover the outdoor activities at the festival but at the same time we are trying to make a critical linkage between what’s going on in the street and the indoor theatre," he said.

He said that there has been some hesitation to the change.

"Historically it has been a part of the festival. People have expressed their concerns over that not being part of what we are presenting on the street," Wyma said.

"But we felt this was a natural evolution."

It is a pilot project Wyma said, so they will look at how well the change went over before they take busking away for good.

kmalone@rawlco.com