(MINNESOTA) The fair city of Minneapolis is now paying buskers and street performers to add culture to the downtown area.Thanks to the Minneapolis Downtown Improvement District (DID), streets will be more vibrant as the city encourages entertainers rather than shooing them away.

The DID Street Show pays performers $50 an hour (more if you have a duo or trio act) in addition to whatever they make in tips.

The downtown organization felt that the busking scene could get a boost by offering entertainers a guaranteed payment.

In Minneapolis, busking is legal as long as performers are on public property, don’t obstruct traffic and don’t violate noise ordinances.

But even a great artist can be met with indifference when trying to coax hurried pedestrians to stop, listen and open their wallets.

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(TEXAS) Austin is using a bankroll of $150,000 in private funds from site developer Trammel Crow to create a Busking Pilot Program in the new Green Water development in the Seaholm District downtown.“Busking is a hugely overlooked art form. From it, you can gain exposure, a surprisingly diverse fan base, other paid performance opportunities, paid practice time in front of a live audience, and perhaps make enough to live on. Many benefits can be gained from an underrated thing such as street performance if you really work at it. It is definitely something that every artist should take advantage of especially where it is open for anyone and everyone.”

The music office plans to pay musicians to perform at the development each weekend for a full year. They are currently accepting applications from street mus...

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We've all found ourselves at one point or another staring in fascination at a busking mime or a talented street musician.In recent years, busking, the term for performing in public places usually for money from the crowd, has grown into an organized art form complete with professional networks, associations and showcase festivals around the world.

Here in the United States, cities such as Miami, San Francisco, New York and New Orleans have become known for their thriving busking scenes.

Take Maria for instance. A longtime busker in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Maria acts as a human statue, completely still, covered in metallic gold paint and dressed in a matching antique wedding gown. While one may think Maria, often referred to as the Jilted Bride, just stands there doing nothing, her motionless presence...

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A new coffee-table book for lovers of Venice Beach Street Performers has just been released.

In case you don't know, Venice Beach is the second most visited tourist area in Southern California with Disneyland being the first.

The writers of the book evidently found a guy who passed the 30 year mark. He was performing when most of today's self-proclaimed "king of the street performers" were still in diapers.

Also included is a humorous story from Mad Chad Taylor on how he first started juggling chainsaws thanks to some goofy commercial maker.

The book includes some killer photos...

Check it out

(BOULDER) Ever since the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado opened in 1976, it has undergone a series of rebirths along the winding way. Now home to human statues, jugglers, fire acts, and of course, musicians, "the mall" has settled down into it's present day form. New pitches have been created so now there's room for everybody at any given time.Boulder is one of the most popular cities on the international busker trail. While most tourists don't know it, the mall has essentially expanded to a full 10 blocks. The tourists continue through stop lights on either end and get to enjoy a much larger and thusly more dynamic Pearl Street Mall. Famous for being first in the modern red-brick style, "street furniture" (benches and seats) line the pedestrian-only walkways...

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