Spring Busker Festival is a celebration with colorful and talented street performers from across the country to show-off their strange talents. The event is followed by Busker After Dark that brings in all the young crowd for a night of partying and revelry.
What: 8th Annual Spring Busker Festival
When: March 29 – 30, 2014, 12 pm to 6 pm
Where: Seaport Village, Harbor Drive, Downtown San Diego
Description: The Spring Busker Festival celebrates with strange and bizarre acts by performers who show-off their talents like sword swallowing, jugglers on unicycles and escape artists. Comedic stuntmen, fire stunts, stilt walkers, contortionists, acrobalancers and more also make an appearance on the quaint cobblestone streets of Seaport Village. The outdoor amusement is extraordinary in its many different forms and unlike any other festival in San Diego.
Seaport Village will add more flair to the event with its attractive sales in its more than 50 shops, restaurants and other eateries. Enjoy parking for $1 in the Seaport Village for the first two hours after a purchase and pay only $4 per hour after that. Better yet, get parking for $10 for the whole day. Complimentary shuttles will be provided from the County Administration Building and will leave every 15 minutes from 12 to 6 pm.
Performances will start at the beginning of every hour starting at noon in the West Plaza Fountain Area and every half hour from 12:30 pm in the East Plaza Gazebo. Buskers will migrate to different areas of the Seaport Village after their main performance so that the entertainment is available everywhere and the festival is not contained in just one area. The buskers are competing for a People’s Choice Award that comes with a $500 travel voucher. Vote for your favorite busker at one of the two voting booths in white tents next to the performance areas.
The line-up of the Buskers Festival is awesome, includes the Aerialist Revolution with the performers hanging 30 feet in the air and sucking out oohs and aahs from the audience with their daring acrobats. Baard Kolstad, who has been cited as the next Ringo Starr, will perform on his drums and wow you to his fan club. Cate Flaherty will charm everyone with her incredibly unique mixture of juggling and acrobatics. Evan Young, full of energy, will make your tummy hurt with his witty repertoire of amazing juggling and talking skills. Style Proz Crew will stun people with their lithe street dancing and have even been featured on America’s Got Talent. Mitchell Walker hypnotizes the crowd with his skill in playing the challenging Aboriginal instrument, the Didgeridoo while Marcus Wilson will help you laugh along his antics in juggling and catching bowling balls on his head.
Cost: Free.
What: Buskers After Dark
When: March 29, 2014, 7 pm to 10 pm
Where: Seaport Village, Downtown San Diego
Description: Get a dose of the dark side of Seaport Village on Saturday, March 29 with $1 beers until the kegs are dry and the food is gone. Have fun after the Busker Festival with delicious food from the eateries and restaurants. The entrance is only for people above 18 years of age. There will be a DJ to liven things up even more between each performance.
Apart from the DJ, performers from all over the country and one each from Norway and Japan will entertain the people of San Diego. The line-up is as impressive as it was in the afternoon part of the festival and includes great talents. Murrugan the Mystic has been featured on AMC’s “Freakshow” and is known far and wide for his spectacular and very dangerous sword-swallowing performances. He can also eat fire and lay on a bed of nails. Don’t miss this talented performer at any cost!
Bekah Smith will be performing in the Spring Buskers Festival as well as the Buskers After Dark. All of Bekah Smith’s performances are characterized by full-out comedy and unbelievable circus stunts. She also juggles and unicycles and transports her audience to new levels of excitement. Ace-Ko and Skip Banks will also perform at the Buskers After Dark after the afternoon festival. Ace-Ko is a Japanese sensation with ninja-like moves and extraordinary skill in acrobatics and juggling. Skip Banks is known as “The Balloon Man” because of his humorous human balloon act that has helped him achieve national recognition on NBC’s Extreme Variety Special.
Head to Busker festival early to spend an awesome time while watching varied performers and eating delicious food. Have fun and make merry with hundreds of other people. And don’t forget to show your love to the buskers with generous tips and loud appreciation!
Cost: Free.
