The Next Busker

Team Name

Shooting Unicorns

Team Members

Project Description

Buskers have been part of cityscapes for centuries with many governments embracing them as a cultural asset. They play a role in making our city more vibrant and lively and are strongly supported by the community.

However, busking isn't always as easy when there are:

1. Strict regulations (i.e. 2 hour time slots)
2. People carrying less and less cash
3. A lack of resources and technology available

For GovHack 2018, the Shooting Unicorns team created 'The Next Busker', a platform using open data for buskers to identify the best time and location to perform. The platform analyses data using pedestrian volume to determine hotspots for getting the best audience reach. The platform also allows buskers to be discovered by Melbournians and tourists, schedule their performance time to notify followers and the ability to get paid online.

For the community, this is a platform that brings people together to discover, subscribe and support their favourite buskers.

we're also experimenting with other datasets to implement even cooler features for the busking community, such as re-purposing under utilised parking bays for even more space to perform at and in the future weather data to improve forecasting.

Data Story

To help buskers identify the best time and location to perform, we aggregated pedestrian traffic to determine the average count for each sensor by week day and hour. To use this data in a meaningful way while factoring in good user experience, we built a map allowing buskers to select a time and date that fits their availability. Using the City Of Melbourne's Open Data SOCRATA API, we then filtered sensor locations based on the radius of the selected landmark of interest and displayed hotspot areas for buskers to choose.

We also wanted to experiment with the idea of re-purposing under utilised parking bays for busking (an 'alpha' feature since it hasn't been approved by the council yet). To achieve this, the platform uses on-street parking bay sensors in conjunction with on street parking sensor data 2017 and on street parking bays data to calculate the aggregated daily usage of parking bays across the City of Melbourne. This allows buskers to also see on-peak and off-peak parking bays on the platform based on their selected time and location.