BANDS played across Newport as part of a new event for the city.

The Big Busk went off with a bang as artists and performers took to the streets for a musical tour of the city centre.

The fundraising and awareness event was organised by live music venue Le Pub to celebrate the city’s best sites, businesses and talent.

The day kicked off at midday with musician Sean McGowan playing in Diverse Music, in the High Street.

The party then visited a further seven venues ending in Le Pub at 7 pm.

As well as promoting local talent, organisers were busy raising money for a new arts centre they are planning to open called Le Public Space which will be replacing their current venue which is up for sale.

The new venue is meant to offer a bigger more central space for artists of all types to perform live from local and further afield.

Organiser Sam Dabb said: “The day has gone brilliantly, the turnout has been incredible everyone has come with us from venue to venue.

“When Mr & Mrs Clark were playing there was about 60 to 70 people.

“Loads of people also joined in which was fun.

“The performers loved it, everyone has been really happy.”

Having run Le Pub in Newport for almost 20 years, Ms Dabb believes Newport needs a brand new art space to showcase the city’s talent.

“Newport has got a real cultural heritage, it goes back hundreds of years,” she said.

“Its heyday was obviously the 90s with Newport is the new Seattle thing and TJ’s.

“We have already lost one really important music venue, we don’t need to lose another one so we are trying to expand from just doing music into arts and documentary screenings and basically anything creative and cultural we want to cover.”

Tahnee Craven, marketing officer for the new Le Public Space, said: “I think music is in the heart of Newport already, it has been here for such a long time and it’s so important to so many people, and with the threat of the closure of the current building it’s really important to get everybody galvanised into some campaign to keep it going in Newport.”

Along the way, the buskers played at the Freestyle skate shop as well as Ye Olde Murenger where there were spoken word performances.

Paul Chambers, one of the poets who performed there, said: “It has been a wonderful day.

“The thing with Newport is things happen but we don’t have a collective energy to make it work a lot of the time.”

The professional poet read a collection of his Haiku poems inspired by Newport to a packed room followed by poet Gary Raymond, editor of the Wales arts review, and Alan Roderick.