Bristol’s Upfest, Europe’s largest free, live street and urban art festival, today launched its second crowdfunding campaign to raise £15,000 ahead of returning in July with its biggest line up of artists.
Launched through Bristol-based Fundsurfer, the campaign will help the festival team pay for the infrastructure to manage the 30,000 expected visitors to the event in Bedminster. 
It will also enable the crew to give away additional materials to the festival’s 300 attending artists who pay for their own flights and accommodation.
This year’s Upfest – the eighth – takes place between July 23 and 25 with artists painting more than 30 venues and outdoor walls.
Participants in the crowdfunding will have the opportunity to get their hands on the exclusive festival print from Gemma Compton, hand-crafted Upfest Oscar cans courtesy of Czee13 and works donated by artists Guy Denning, Inkie, Louis Masai, Oli-T, Rob Wass, SHOK-1 and Spzero76 among others.
Upfest will once again be used as a platform for raising money for The National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA) which offer a confidential phone line for children affected by alcoholism within the family.
Upfest founder and gallery owner Stephen Hayles said: “We’re proud to be back with what is expected to be the most colourful Upfest to date. The festival has grown exponentially every year with limited grants and our target is to raise £15,000 – a quarter of the festival budget – in the next four weeks through contributions from as little as £5 from everyone that supports the festival and love what we do in this little corner of the world.
“Each year the amount of artist spaces, venues and walls to paint increase and this year we received the most artist applications from more countries than ever before. We’re looking forward to having the biggest and most diverse line-up for street artists, writers and traditional artists coming to the South West to share their art with us.”
This year’s roster will be the most diverse collection of urban artists in one location with more than 300 artists from 40 countries as far-flung as Canada, Australia, Argentina, Israel and across Europe painting to a soundtrack of fantastic live funk, soul, reggae and old school hip-hop around Bedminster.
For more information visit the festival’s website www.upfest.co.uk
To donate visit www.fundsurfer.com/upfest and search for ‘Upfest.’
