While I was at the National Puppetry Festival, I took a class on Urban Busking. For those who aren’t familair with the term, it’s basically street performance for money. I was curious about how it worked and what the show structure was like. The class covered things like how to get a permit and the practicalities of busking. I then had a good conversation with Madison J. Cripps, a wonderful puppeteer, about the structure of a busking show. He suggested having two minutes of material that you just repeat, over and over.
The tiny little puppet show that I do at my readings is two minutes long.
I also talked to my old mentor, Peter Hart, who walked me through how to pick a performance spot by taking me with him when he was selecting one at the festival. You have to think about traffic flow, having a place for the audience to be, and the location of the sun.
So… at GenCon, I got a permit to busk. Then put on the Regency clothes, set up the shadow puppet show, and put my bonnet out. I “seeded” it with a dollar and also set out some and books, just to see if I could sell any.
I only busked for an hour, before I had to leave to check out of my hotel room. How’d I do?
In that hour, I made $61 dollars and sold two novels. I’d put out a couple of dozen cards about the novels and only had three left so… I call this a success.
It’s a strange way to promote one’s novels. I have no idea if it will result in any additional novel sales, but unlike most promotional efforts, this resulted in money in, rather than money out. That’s a win, right there.
Plus it’s fun.
Genius. Not only was it more rewarding for you than standard promotional efforts, but I suspect it was more rewarding for the people you were promoting to.
That is pretty awesome. There was a bagpiper who busked in North Hampton when I was in college. And several violinists. I always enjoyed the music, but I’ve never seen a puppet show before.
Oh what a gorgeous idea! I accidentally fell into busking for a while when I was young. Probably the best hourly rate I ever earned. But that was just straight busking – I love the idea of coming across someone in full costume doing a shadow puppet show!
Mary, I’ve been thinking about organizing something (vaguely) like this, though I was mentally calling it “street readings” or something like that. It’s a little more feasible for me to arrange, as my emphasis as a publisher is on anthologies (and I live vaguely close to a lot of the authors in them).
Where should I start to look for more information on permits and the like? Or was that just at GenCon because it’s GenCon? Is “Urban Busking” the right term to search for, or is there a legalese term that would be a better fit.
Thanks!
My understanding is that to perform on a city street, you talk to the chamber of commerce about getting a license or permit. For a convention, you ask for a performers permit. The thing is that not all places will offer permits, not because they disallow it but because it hasn’t really come up before.
My friend once looked into possibly busking at a local street mall, and he had to apply for a permit through city hall. Every place is different but should be along the same lines.
Say if you are a musician and you are selling your CD for 10 bucks each. You only need to sell one (which shouldn’t be hard if you are good enough and the place has a bunch of tourists) to make better hourly wage than people making minimum wage. And the promotional materials given out can also possibly lead to future opportunities.
Hard work, though, like many other things.
Brilliant. What fun. I wish I had been there to see it.
“I set out my bonnet.” I should like to think I would put money into a bonnet just because that was what was collecting donations.
Well done! Wish I could have been there. Did anybody grab video of you? Btw: just finished “Without a Summer” and loved it.
Have you seen the puppet bike in Chicago? The guy has a small theater built on the back of his bike with just enough room for him to fit into. I’ve seen him perform a couple times near the Art Fairs downtown. Great little show and well worth the time to stop and watch. Congrats on your successful busking premiere. Never heard the term before so extra points. 🙂