A Tauranga artist is hoping the city's streets remain filled with creative and free music despite one of the donated pianos being vandalised and vomited on.

Nick Eggleston's heart sank on Tuesday afternoon when he was informed the piano painted by a group of artists at The Incubator had to be removed from Grey Street due to its less than desirable state.

The damaged piano awaiting inspection from the Incubator after being cleaned by Downtown Tauranga staff.

Upon inspection a number of keys have either been pulled off, or pushed in, and damaged. There were various stains and substances on the piano, which have now been cleaned off.

'My heart just sank, you think that there are other people that are just wreckers. When you live in a creative community there is always people that are contrary to that and come along and wreck it,” says Nick.

The piano is part of a themed initiative undertaken by the Tauranga artist collective, which has painted seven pianos positioned in public places throughout the Western Bay of Plenty.

In Tauranga there is one outside Creative Tauranga on Willow Street and another on The Strand. Other pianos are located at Pilot Bay and Katikati.

Nick, the head artist, says it is disappointing to see the donated work shown no respect after about seven artists spent three weekends colourfully painting them.

But there are no initial thoughts of removing the pianos from the streets, rather it is a risk the project must face when trying to promote something creative and vibrant across the city.

'It's a shame, one of my thoughts when we were doing this was this is a really good, fun project and is nice for Tauranga, but there is always that possibility that you put them in the public space and they do get wrecked.

'We are ever hopeful that we carry on. You overcome it by carrying on to do it all again.”

Mainstreet Tauranga co-ordinator Sally Cooke says the organisation has done its utmost to look after the piano after adopting ownership from the Incubator.

But she does concede there is always the risk of some people not respecting the initiative as much as everyone would like.

'Because it sits out on Grey Street there is always the risk with a city piano; one its exposure to the elements and also of course we cannot guarantee that some person is not going to do vandalise it,” says Sally.

'The moment you put it in the public arena there is the potential for this sort of thing. We don't have 24 hour surveillance of course.”

The piano, currently at the Downtown Tauranga office, has been cleaned up and will be inspected by the Incubator as to what repairs will be made and whether the piano returns to the street.

'We just need to give it a bit of TLC and a bit of care. It was never a piano that was in pristine condition that got damaged.”

'They [The Incubator] were obviously very upset, as were we, about the state of the piano.”

An Incubator spokesperson did not wish to comment on the vandalism.