This is a description of all the sections we’re building for The Busker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s a dense read, mainly for reference purposes. If there’s something we’re missing or you want to correct, please comment below.

 

Quick Links:

(click the below to go to the section that interests you)

Welcome

Introduction and User Guide

  • User Guide. Including: How to use this site. How to add your own content. Inspire people to get involved. Sign in. Report/Flag. Email Notifications.
  • Our Background. People need to know what The Busking Project is – they might have come here from a web search. So, this will include a timeline of who we are, where we came from and how this Guide came to be.
  • Changelog. News and updates about the Guide.
  • Statement of Purpose. Why The Guide exists – what we intend for it to do.
  • How you can help us out. “This takes a lot of work, we’re a small team, and if it’s helpful to you, you can donate or buy one of our services to keep this guide going.”
  • Timeline of our advocacy work. The various ways we’ve helped buskers in the past. Just to show we’re not a corporate entity!

About Busking

About Busking

  • What is a Busker. For anyone who doesn’t fully understand what it is to be a “busker” (performing in public to a non-captive audience for voluntary donations)
  • Terminology. So non-buskers can understand the words used on the rest of the site (pitch, hat line, circle show etc)
  • Why is busking Important. The many arguments over why busking matters. This will be basically an essay. The rest of The Guide backs up the arguments here.

Multimedia, Writings and quotes

  • Multimedia. Photos and videos we’ve taken of buskers over the years, plus the various documentaries and short films about street performers. Tagged by features, trailers, shorts etc.
  • Busker-written articles. Tagged by Busker Central, Buskers Advocates, Performers.net…
  • Books. Tagged by Urbanism, Research, Analyses, Memoirs.
  • Academic Papers. The Guide will make it easy for academic researchers to find papers that focus on issues around street performance written by economists, lawyers, ethnomusicologists, psychologists and many others. Tagged by discipline.
  • Quotes. Tagged by celebrity, judge, urbanist, busker, academic, journalist…

Busker Hall of Fame

  • Submit. Can have people submit stories, and also to suggest buskers to interview for their story. Can also submit votes on next years’ inductees. Open to any discipline. All BHOF pages include a donate button where people can donate directly to them.
  • Inductees. HOF inductees by year.
  • Episodes. Selection of “best” episodes (10 of them?).

Busking Museum

  • Busking Museum. People don’t realise quite how important busking has been for civilisation, culture and the spread of art around the world. This is a general history of street performance, all over the place, in a calendar format. Not only have buskers been a large part of our cultural landscape since the days of ancient Egypt, Greece, India and China, but buskers have always been an important cultural force in our cultures, bringing new artistic disciplines and instruments across borders. Not to mention the hundreds of household name celebrities who started their careers on the streets. This section will also include appearances of busking on TV, in Films, Fine Art, Books, Celebrities who started off their careers busking, and so on.

Busker Support

Promo Videos and Materials

  • Create your own. Guides on how to create the best promo materials, divided by social media type (i.e. “promo video”, “facebook page” etc). Also an offer of a social media audit, given by me (paid service).
  • Videographers & Photographers. List of people who specialise in filming street performers, tagged by what they specialise in.

Equipment, Merch and Mobile Payments

  • Equipment. There’ll be “thumbs up” where buskers can vote on whether they like a particular piece of equipment. And MAYBE we can also have “comments”. Equipment will be tagged by type – amps, loop pedals, cables etc etc.
  • Mobile Payments. A table showing all the different options for mobile payments, including the region they’re in and a description.

Busker Festivals

  • Festival List. Hundreds of festivals, all over the world, accepting street performer applications.
  • Social Media Audit. One of our services – helping buskers to apply to festivals by looking through their online profiles to ensure they’re putting the best versions of themselves out there.

Crowd Funding & Services Buskers Offer

  • Crowd Funding Campaigns. Embedded widgets from Kickstarter, Patreon, GoFundMe etc.
  • Motivational Speaking, Training. Buskers often have “how to do these tricks” DVDs, or do motivational speaking. Plus a range of other services (like building bespoke juggling equipment). This is where they’ll advertise their stuff.

Other Organisations

  • Other Organisations. Links to other organisations, with blurb, logo, and CTAs including donate, register, sign petition, sign up, support. Maybe also some embedded videos created by those organisations (like Busking for Change). Tagged by region.

Regional Pages

News Articles

  • News Articles. To have any chance of changing public opinion, we’ve got to get into the comments section of as many news articles as we can. That’s where the public debate is happening. This is where people can keep up to date on what local news people are saying about buskers.

Permits, Laws and Codes

  • Permits and Licenses. Links to where you can apply for a permit or license (if the region has one). This includes local laws (so buskers know what to expect before turning up in a new city), plus how some cities are really getting it right, working with street performers to draft sensible regulation. This section will also serve as a database of which cities are criminalising busking, and which laws should help buskers fight councils on this.
  • Bylaws and Laws. Laws governing busking in this area, with complete text and a link. Also laws saying busking is lawful, if they exist.
  • Codes of Conduct. Any official codes-of-conduct that local buskers abide by.

Arrests, Fines and Harassments

  • Fines, arrests, harassment. Where buskers can report being fined, arrested or harassed by authorities. PSPOs, CPNs, dispersal orders, prosecutions for the sale of CDs, busking without a license. Being able to say who moved them on – private or public officials, for example. Maybe a database of problem areas “challenging spots” – where performers can say where they’ve had difficulties in the past. Gentle recommendations. Would have to make it clear that they can busk wherever they like.

Local Festivals

  • Local Festivals. Festivals taking place in the region.
  • Promo Material Review. One of our other services – helping buskers to apply to festivals.

Lawyers and Organisations

  • Lawyers & Organisations. Lawyers who’ve defended buskers in the past. Law firms who specialise in civil rights. Almost every major town and city has a group, an association, or even just a Facebook group dedicated to local busking. Includes a donate button for each organisation

Legal Resources

How to guides

  • How To Guides. How to do research, run a crowdfunding campaign, avoid arrest, protect your rights in council meetings, write a press kit, create a petition, and so on. How to build a legal defence, how to fundraise for a campaign, how to write a press kit, and so on.

Court Citations

  • Court citations. Tagged by location. Summary of the case, summary of the result, and maybe a pertinant quote? Perhaps also a “win/lose” tag. Shouldn’t hide lawsuits buskers have lost, and wiki is a good model – multi language, curated, and anyone can upload any content. Don’t block cases that went against buskers, because it’ll help their lawyers not make the same mistakes. Tag court cases with the three judicial branches in Brazil. Buskerville: keywords with what they pertain to (e.g. amplification, licensing etc). This is far more important in countries like the USA or Brazil, where precedent in federal courts will define future laws, but judges in the UK do take previous rulings into account.

Know your rights guides

  • Rights. Article 20 of the Human Rights act, the 1st Amendment of the US constitution, and all the other documents that seem to guarantee the rights of buskers in public spaces.
  • Guides. A few have been written by organisations all over the world. Most are for cities, some are for countries, all are useful.

Outside help

  • Organisations, lawyers, sites. Same as above (in the regional pages).

Model Regulations

  • Model Regulations. Already on BuskersAdvocates website.
  • Real Examples. Already on BuskersAdvocates website.

Current Campaigns and funds

  • Campaigns. Not just a place for organisations to drum up support for their current campaigns, but also a way of helping them get donations, right there in the guide.
  • Funds. Every now and again a performer gets injured, and people set up funds to support them.

Research and Urbanism

Surveys

  • Research Surveys. Economics of Busking. What stage of your career are you in? Psychology of busking. Answer survey now! What are the worst places to busk and why? What legal issues people have encountered from a geographical point of view. Legal frameworks VS qualitative experience of those places. The ability to tag stuff geographically. How many buskers there are in a location. What are the worst places to busk and why.

Placemaking

  • Placemaking. Shows councils, BIDs and urban planners how positively busking can transform a space, and how it fits into the placemaking placemaking movement.