A new article at the Evening Times lists the "top ten" buskers who became celebrities. Blues great BB King went town to town in Mississippi playing his guitar for loose change. The stand-up comic Eddie Izzard first took his talents to the streets of Sheffield then on to fame in Europe.Can you guess which future star was kicked out of Spain for vagrancy? How about guessing which star performed fire tricks on the streets of London? Of course, we can't forget the star who performed a mime act on the streets of New York while an acting student.

The top ten is quite entertaining and revealing while the "X" list (ex-busker) contains an incredible list of lists featuring all buskers who became *Stars*. There is a new master compilation currently being built that is due out sometime next year.

Read about...

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(PITTSBURGH) Bringing the "Weird, Wild and Wonderful" to the streets, the Busker Street Union enlivens city streets making them safer. It also gives a voice to the voiceless. Busker Street Union is a national placemaking program."We reactivate street spaces. We engage community members through performance. We do research by collecting busking guidelines around the world and we map the safe places to play. The mapping allows us to identify spaces that are protected Free Speech allowing others to use the spaces as a venue for activism. If you are looking for a safe place to play, join the union and sign up here. You’ll get tips on the best places to play and friendly business owners looking to stir up a crowd."

An interesting take on the history of busking, street stages, and busking l...

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(COLORADO) The Denver Union Station Buskerfest is back for it's fifth year after being cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns. Located in the heart of downtown Denver, Union Station is the newly revamped light rail and bus station complete with restaurants, ice cream shops, watering holes, and boutiques.Busker Central video journalists have covered many a buskerfest at the current site as well a previous fourteen year run as the nations largest buskerfest.

This year's international buskers features Tennis the Menace, Cate Great, the USA Breakdancers, Pogo Fred, just Felice, the Pear Performance Act, Rudi Monterroso, Annie Frazier, Kateie Mesmerie and Jeff Paley, and Rose.

Just like every buskerfest, these professional buskers are guaranteed to entertain the masses with amazing displays of feats - some quite...

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Joshua Jay has made available an online ebook containing over 500 pages of blessings from the "Father" of magic Robert Houdin to the Las Vegas style of Penn and Teller.Taking over 3 years to assemble some of the most important, influential, and helpful essays on magic ever written, Joshua has now made them available to all serious students of magic for free.

Continuing the Busker Central book review series, the list of worthy contributors is truly staggering:

Tommy Wonder
Charles Reynolds
Simon Aronson
Paul Harris
John Carney
Jamy Ian Swiss
Dariel Fitzke
Peter Samelson
Derren Brown
Michael Close
Pit Hartling

Eugene Burger
S.H. Sharpe
Rene Lavand
Robert-Houdin
Henning Nelms
Juan Tamariz
Rick Johnsson
Tom Stone
Darwin Ortiz
Milt Kort
Arturo de Ascanio

David Regal
Doug Conn
Ken Weber
David Kaye
Roberto Giobbi...

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It's survival of the fittest as some resort to dirty tactics in face of stiffer competition.

Outwit, outplay, outlast.
That motto from TV reality series Survivor also holds true for the buskers in Orchard Road.

The current economic downturn is certainly not music to their ears as they have seen takings drop in recent months.

If that's not enough of a worry, they also have to fend off competition from both legitimate and illegal buskers.

But more of that later. For now, the downturn is a more worrisome test of survivor skills.

Take the case of Mr Donald Wee, 51, who strums the guitar near Shaw House.

'More people are donating coins instead of $5 or $10 notes,' he lamented.

He used to earn about $100 in two hours but can net only $40 now. The former security guard went into busking four years ago when he could not find another job after he was arrested for fighting....

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