Busking
This trial sought to understand community interest in more busking in the central city, the appetite for a wider variety of performances and the conditions for successful busking.
What Happened and why?
It’s widely recognised that busking makes an important contribution to the cultural life of a city. For Timaru, busking meant a person or group of people offering a performance to entertain in exchange for a donation. A street performance can include playing a musical instrument, singing, reciting or performing conjuring, juggling, puppetry, poetry, miming, statue acts, dancing or other entertainment, or doing any of those things concurrently.
Timaruvians have told us that they’d love to see a wider variety of buskers in town and more often, so we want to see what local performers can do and so this trial aimed to test the appetite for more frequent and varied street-based entertainment to learn whether busking could develop longer-term as part of the day-to day cultural life of the city, positively engaging passers-by and creating a sense of interest and fun that encourages the community to come to town and stay for longer periods of time.
We thank many members of the community who supported local and gave tips and compliments to our local buskers and performers.
The post trial report for this trial can be found here: Post Trial Report - Busking