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October 9, 2026 Busker Festivals Provide Unique Attraction Opportunity
Buskers are street performers who toil for tips. Bringing them together in one downtown at one time can provide a low-budget way to fill an event schedule and downtown streets. The busker festival in Great Barrington, MA, started in 2021 and has grown to the point that performers entertain visitors 10 weekends each summer. Five or six performers take to the streets each Friday and Saturday evening from the Fourth of July through Labor Day. "We have developed something that has a triple return," says Eugene Carr, founder of Berkshire Busk and Community Busk in Great Barrington. "It creates community. It brings people downtown. It's placemaking in its very finest format, because it doesn’t require any building of any infrastructure. We just instantly create a space. We create jobs for artists and performers, and then naturally there's economic development because people come downtown and they want to eat and they want to dine. And so with very, very little capital investment, you can create a festival like this." The full article appears in the October issue of Downtown Idea Exchange. Click below to learn more about Downtown Idea Exchange and other resources for revitalizing downtowns and commercial corridors. 
8-1/2" x 11", softcover,
270 pages, $43.95. Recommended ReadingThe Community Economic Development HandbookComprehensive, realistic, and easy-to-use, The Community Economic Development Handbook is just what you need to turn a neighborhood or business district around. Author Mihailo Temali has distilled over twenty years of experience in community-based economic development into this practical, jargon-free handbook which presents a proven approach to making every community a better place to live, work, and play. Temali focuses on what he calls a "pivot point strategy" to start or expand economic development. The four pivot points are:
Temali explains how to choose your first pivot point, then guides you, step-by-step, through the process of tackling each one. Case studies of successful community economic development provide inspiration. Sidebars explore related issues. And appendices point you toward useful resources, show you how to research your regional economy, and include dozens of worksheets that will help you put the material in the book into action. The Community Economic Development Handbook is just one of the many books on Downtown Economic Development available from the Downtown Development Center. |
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Lewiston, ME, kicked off a successful busking festival in 2025. And in Lawrence, KS, and Burlington, VT, busker fests have been going strong for two decades.