Craic On

Busker Abu

TG4’s new show Busker Abu has started. All 10 heats of the show to find Ireland’s best Busker have now been filmed.

Episodes of the show will be shown every Sunday night for the next 9 weeks (the first one was shown last Sunday).

Then there will be two semi finals and a final.

Each heat has eight acts in it. Only one act goes through to the semi  finals.

Impressing the Busker Abu Judges

Each act plays for 2 minutes. However, they only have 90 seconds to impress the judges.

Each of the three judges have a large button on their desk. If they press it 5 times within the 90 seconds then they are saying that they liked the act. Each time they press the button a coin appears on the screen.

All three judges have to have pressed the buttons 5 times in 90 seconds for the musical act to be allowed to finish their song.

Otherwise the sound cuts out and the lights change.

That means the act has to stop and they are out of the competition.

Busker Abu Sing Off

After all the acts have been on, the judges consider all the acts that they liked (who got all 5 coins from all three judges) and they pick two for a sing-off.

The judges then are asked who they liked better of the two acts and the act wins through if two or more judges support them.

The winner goes through to the semi finals.

I’m told, also, that the producers will get together and chose one of the ten acts who were runners-up to go through as well.

Busker Abu is on TG4 at 8:30pm for an hour every Sunday night.