By Lady Vee
It’s been nearly 9 years since I left my full-time job to go traveling and live a life earning money from busking. I was in a well-paid job as a Services and Training Manager with a good organisation. People’s reactions ranged from – “wow! well done you”, to “I can’t believe you’re leaving a good job to go make balloons on the street” to many other comments in between. I grew a thick skin quite quickly!
Like any decision, its not easy to make that final leap into the unknown, but once I made the decision, things began to fall into place.
Now with years of experience behind me, I have learned many things. The big lesson I learned was not to rely on one source of income only. Although making balloons was my main performance area – I soon discovered that I needed to look to other avenues to make money to continue to live the life that I wanted to live.
As many of you will know my partner and husband is Mario Morris – an international street performer, magician and now a motivational and keynote speaker – so I had a good teacher! He talks about the 3 woven cord strategy in his Street Performing Manual.
I have learned a huge amount of skills since starting off as a busker, in order to keep money coming in all year round
So as well as been able to go anywhere, set up my balloon stand and balloon busk for tips, now I can also perform a family magic show, do balloons, perform a storytelling set, perform a duo act in our show The Magical Tales with Mario. Other things I have learned on the way are how to run a magic stand, how to set up and run a market stall, be a ‘ptich woman’, sell magic online, facilitate and host events, how to create a website, make video promos and market material, contact bookers, do accounts and in the past few years I have gone back to my training days and provide training weekends alongside Mario.
So you see, when you make that leap into full-time freelance or busking you must be prepared to learn a lot more skills, but to me, it has been worth it and I am very happy that I made the leap and now travel the world, doing what I love, with my best friend!
To your many more fat hats and many more hats that you will learn to wear over the years.
Happy 2017
Vee