"In a nutshell, busking and begging may be alike for that they both solicit donations in public space, but at the same time busking should be distinguishable from begging in that it additionally provides performance and entertainment which have the potential to make public space more favorable.Dec 2, 2021"
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"Street performing is legally considered to be artistic free speech and is protected, just as is panhandling or begging."
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"Subsistence strategies such as panhandling (begging for money, food or other items), busking (providing entertainment for money), and squeegeeing (washing car windshields for money) are
informal economic activities commonly associated with homelessness"
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"Performances are anything that people find entertaining, including acrobatics, animal tricks, balloon twisting, caricatures, clowning, comedy, contortions, escapology, dance, singing, fire skills, flea circus, fortune-telling, juggling, magic, mime, living statue, musical performance, puppeteering, snake charming, storytelling or reciting poetry or prose, street art such as sketching and painting, street theatre, sword swallowing, ventriloquism and washboarding. "
"Some of the bands that performed in this manner were Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape and Jimi Hendrix. "
"Joshua Bell, a noted classical violinist, posed as a busker in the L'Enfant Plaza Metro station in Washington, D.C. at rush hour in 2007, as part of a feature in The Washington Post.
In the 45 minutes that Bell played, only seven people out of over a thousand who passed by stopped to watch, and he took in just over $32.
Gene Weingarten later won a Pulitzer Prize for the story."