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Saturday, August 29, 2015

Buskers

A 'Busker' is a person who performs on the streets or other public places for gratuities.
Busking may include a large variety of entertainments :
Acrobatics, Juggling, Magic, Fire eating, Sword swallowing, Balancing and many more entertaining activities.
Inevitably crowds gather, watch the performance and leave the artist a gratuity.

From Thursday, August 27 to Sunday, August 30 Toronto held the "Toronto International Busker Fest".
This year's line -up of street artists (over 170 performers and over 70 acts ) hail from across Canada, the USA, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Hungary, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Peru, Slovakia, Spain, The Netherlands, Poland and Thailand.

Last year's Busker Fest in Toronto was visited by over 1.5 Million spectators and promoters expect even more this year. The entire Festival stretches from College Street to Queens Street which effectively closes this part of Yonge Street. All along this route there are stands selling all kind of things, from "button sewing machines" to souvenirs,  to a variety of foods from different countries.
Visitors make a voluntary contribution at each entrance. All proceeds are to the benefit of Toronto's Epilepsy Organisation.

Bertstravels was one of this 1.5 Million and he took these pictures:


The Scotiabank is one of the sponsors 
and the Festival is in Support of  Epilepsy Toronto.




Toronto is 'cool'.
They just close off about 1.5 km 
of the most important downtown street,
invite the public under the motto: Let's have some fun, 
and do a good thing to boot.


Musical Groups and acrobats vie for the attention of the visitors.







On Dundas Square, huge advertising signs 
"decorate" the side of new buildings.





Slapstick humor and pulling faces
is always good for a laugh.





a very talented side walk painter.


and some more jugglers.



This is what it's all about !



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