Old Milford Busker and Artisan Festival

[Unregistered]

Old Milford Busker and Artisan Festival, October 7, 2006, Milford, Ohio (17 miles east of Cincinnati) from noon till 9 P.M. Looking for all types of buskers, especially living (human) statues, jugglers and stilt walkers. View web site milfordbuskerfest.com or email buskerfest@yahoo.com

[jayrodin]

Human statues? Come on.

[Pele]

What's the problem with Human Statues? We do them often with tremendous success, and it takes alot of endurance to pull them off well, and creativity to manipulate a crowd with them.
Too bad we're booked that day.

[jayrodin]

Perhaps I've just never seen a good human statue. Endurance I can see that, but how do you go about manipulating a crowd? A guy in a suit covered in metalic paint who moves a bit when a little kid gives him money has just never been entertaining to me. I've never viewed that as much of a performance. Maybe I am missing the point? Really though, nothing is wrong with human statues. I like seeing people out doing stuff like this. But when people are looking specifically for human statues for one of the main courses of a buskers fest I begin to think they don't know what they are doing. Course maybe they've already got some good people doing circle shows and they are just needing some extera stuff? Didn't think about that before. That is what the "come on" was directed towards. I would love to know how you manipulate a crowd doing the human statue. Can you put on a good 20 min long show with this? Do people actually stand around and watch the whole time? (I'm not being sarcastic. I'm really actually interested.)

[Pele]

As a matter of fact, we can and do perform for longer than 20 minutes as the statues. We've been known to be out for 2-3 hours (with minor breaks, of course).

Movement doesn't have to be just when money is put in, or limited to only one movement.

We have a girl who carries apples in a basket. When people go to walk away, she pulls one out and offers it to them. They almost always look back around to see it. They come back and see what she'll do next.
We have a juggler. He sloooooooooowly comes to life, juggles, drops one, holds out his hand towards where the ball landed...someone will *always* pick it up and hand it back after which he settles into a new position and will do something different next time.
When we move from one spot to the next it is in slow motion.

I've seen one where I did watch her for about 25 minutes. She only moved when people came up for photos, then she did the bunny ears on them. At the end she moved in super speed, took a bow and ran off. I wasn't amused by this, so we decided to incorporate both the stillness and the slow motion to complete it...and then to use whatever props we choose to fill out the effect.

Like every other kind of performance, it is what we make of it and where our imagination stretches it.

*shrug*

[AmberLynn]

my moving statue act

I'm proud of it

balloons go pop!

[Pele]

Ahhhhh...the way old, traditional and lovely burlesque balloon act.
Nice spin on it.

I believe one of our juggling statues is on the cover page

https://www.Pyromorph.com

(too tired to find the photo lol)

[Stretch]

and in China

http://www.smh.com.au/news/unusual-tales/pablos-gone-pottery/2006/09/18/1158431625640.html

terra cotta in cognito!

[Pele]

Thanks for that link Stretch.
That was really fun to read.

I don't recommend everyone go try that, but talk about becoming part of history! lol

[Rich Potter]

Back to the festival, has anyone here done this one-day busker fest? Is it the Old Busker Festival in Milford? Or is the town Old Milford?

I'd hate to think it's a 20-year old busker festival that still only runs one day.

[Pele]

Originally posted by Rich Potter
Back to the festival, has anyone here done this one-day busker fest? Is it the Old Busker Festival in Milford? Or is the town Old Milford?

I'd hate to think it's a 20-year old busker festival that still only runs one day.

Rich, I did a quick net search and found this...

https://www.milfordbuskerfest.com

It says it's in its second year.

[jburns]

Last year another performer & myself made the trek to Milford and we were the only out of town performers.

It was a lot of fun and the people there were very friendly, and they treated us fantastically!

Unfortunately, the tips weren't amazing, but it has potential. Milford is very near Cincinnati, so hopefully more people from the city will attend, and help the festival grow.

If you are looking for more details here is an article from last year's event www.comedystunts.com/promo/credits/09-28-05.jpg

- Jonathan

[Hunter]

I made it out to Milford this year. Like Jonathan said; the people there were great. There weren't a huge number of people there, but then I hear the festival was running up against a huge river boat festival about 20 minutes away in Cincinatti.

They were very accomodating. (can I go to a place where I won't blast fire onto power lines?) The organizers are hoping to step it up next year to attract more performers - possibly rotating acts between a central pitch, possibly getting an RV to act as a green room. They also mentioned plans to get sponsors to chip in for lodging and travel expenses.

No human statues made it this year.

[Frisbee]

No human Statues made it this year...does that mean they were all killed in the line of duty?

[Hunter]

In a manner of speaking...

I was singing selected tracks from RENT the motion picture between every show. There were mass suicides after the assassination attempts failed. They never even tried to run... except in place.