Life On The Street: A Buskers Blog

[William Draven]

I've decided to put my cards where my mouth is. I'm going to try a 31 day (month) long busking experement.

I'm going to take my skills to the street, with obvious goals set in place and see if I can't meet or exceed them.

I'll be bloging daily about my exploits, lessons, and adventures. For ease of control, I'll be doing the blog on my website. (www.williamdraven.webs.com)

The blog is visable to anyone, though I do believe you'll need a free membership in order to post any kind of feedback or replies.

Here's to hoping this is a successful adventure. God knows, I'm sure it'll be an educational one.

Here's an interesting thought. Would anyone here care to join the educational process in a friendley challenge of weekly one-ups?

Here's the format:
1 month. Performing minimal 1 time a week. A week is defined by a period of seven normal week days. You must blog about your experience.

The goal: To achieve (at the minimum) of $20 dollars in tips per day of performance. Anything less is fail. Anything more is potential bragging rights.

Obviously the payoff for doing this, reward, prize if you will, is the educational experience you'll recieve, and the chance to talk with others trying the same thing you are.

anyone in?

 

[Luis Vega]

I am so reading it daily!!!
thanks for the chance to learn from this

 

[Mr.MadMan]

You know William, everything besides the money and im in. The thing is that my culture has problems with that, plus id get arrested. But i can try!
You´re on

Mikk.

 

[Lyle Borders]

Most interesting idea I have actually seen someone try to do. I enjoy what I read so far, and will continue to read up as you go.

 

[illusions09]

I would give it a try but the tip thing would not work because im going back to my college this weekend and we all no that poor college kidws are reluctant to give up money to their peers...but currently i am working on my first of my live video series if you want i can post a link for you so you can see my experiences first hand. i do like your idea alot though

 

[Randomwrath]

I would have loved to take you up on this, but I'm going through exams at school at the moment, and the weather is appalling (snow and ice everywhere). Also, I've tried to get a busking license in my area before, and they weren't particularly happy about it (actually, they were downright unhelpful). If I did this, I'd have to travel to a nearby village, where you don't need busking licenses. Still, maybe when the summer holidays roll in...

Best of luck to you

 

[Austin Fields]

William,

how long and where do I go about getting a business/busking license?

~Beans

 

[William Draven]

check with your court house.

i know that in so cal where i live there are two locations that you can get away without having a license.

 

[Austin Fields]

check with your court house.

i know that in so cal where i live there are two locations that you can get away without having a license.

So cal where we live haha

check your PM's, and I want to take you on for this one, so let me know

~Beans

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

I'd do it, but I have discovered that Fresno is not friendly to buskers. Apparently there are licenses here, but I've been unable to figure out where to get one (Talked to several people and departments, constantly get bounced around), and there's also nowhere good to perform. There's very few places that aren't malls where people gather in this city.

But it's a great idea! I'll be reading the updates for sure.

 

[Randomwrath]

Just out of interest, when are you starting? I'll want to keep up with this and see how it's going

 

[William Draven]

I'm on day 4 as I type this.

 

[chrystal baller]

gotta tell ya, I read the first three and I am looking forward to the days to come. This is something I have wanted to do for a while. If it was'nt winter in central Illinois, I'd be right there with you. Keep up the good work I have lots of respect for what you are doing.

 

[William Draven]

Day 4 has been updated.

 

[Renaldo]

William, props to you for throwing yourself out there and doing this. Lots of courage to do that. After reading your blog adventures with busking, I'd suggest you read this blog from the beginning: http://jimmytalksalot.blogspot.com/ . He's a magic busker that makes a lot of money. I think you'll find you may not be going about things the right way. Also, if you're serious about busking, you might want to check out the School of Busking DVD series.

 

[MillionaireMike]

or Tales from the streets by Kozmo

 

[William Draven]

I'll certainly read those this week. Thanks for the tip.

Day 5 has been updated. Next scheduled update: Next Friday.

 

[SHANE BLACK]

William,

Your blog is a nice read I've read all five days topics and you bring alot of memories back to me and why I moved forward into other things. Having said that I miss busking and I sometimes wouldn't mind taking a few days to do it out of my work week the only downside is...I can't afford it for the return of what I make. Hope the hand gets better I look forward to reading more, congrats on the experiment.

Shane

 

[MillionaireMike]

I have been really interested in your blog because it is my dream to be a professional busker, on the next school holidays I'll be doing an experiment similar to yours. Yesterday was the local busker's festival so I decided to head down there and have a go... I performed for just over 2 hours (had a few interruptions of other performers coming and having a talk) and I walked away with $40... this was my first time busking and I only started performing for strangers November last year. My largest crowd was about 20 people, but that was really hard to build because I wasn't in the main "stage" area where all the pro's were so most people were going there. I got some crazy reactions and some people wanted me to sign their card that they got to keep (they had already signed it) and I'm only 14 so I thought that was pretty cool. The hardest thing I found was getting people to stay, Okay I didn't really have my flowing routine I imagined but it was okay, most people saw two or three things then moved on... Though I had about half the people come back later on to see more . Just thought I would share this story with you, I don't think it would have gone half as well without Kozmo's dvd set, I reccomend you buy it!

 

[willabbotsm]

I've never busked before, but Jim Cellini is a master of it. You should check out his stuff.

Also, maybe you could perform a levitation to attract people? Andrew Mayne's Levitator, and it is really good, and if you do it in front of a wall, it could be considered angle sensitive.