Busking in Lausanne

Lausanne was our last city in Switzerland we played and it was great as well as anywhere else in the country!

Lausanne

Busking rules in Lausanne:
You have to get a permit which you can get for 17 francs and for every extra day you have to pay 7 euros more. You have to change the place every 30 minutes. There are special kind of officers who check the permit. The normal police has different priorities.

Busker with little cows

Our experiance:
From Bren  it took us 20 minutes to get a ride to Lausanne and we were really happy :) Also the sun was shining all day long when we were there and we enjoyed it as much as we could. The city is really beautiful and the lake is amazing! You can see the Alps in the other side (France).

The Alps and the palm tree

We played 2 full days in Lausanne and it wa quite good! After playing 2 hours we always had around 60-80 Francs. First we thought that we don't need any permission because 2-3 groups of police men passed us but they didn't say anything. The last day we met with a local busker (he plays with a glass ball and late on we played with him a bit :)) and he told us about the rules. There is a special officer who can check your papers, but they are not that strict. He had a friend who was caught 3 times and he didn't get any fine but probably he will if they find him without paper again. So we didn't meet any of them in 3 days of playing.

Playing together

Street in Lausanne

Best places:
On the walking streets there are many possibilities to busk. The streets are quite long and not that wide and a lot of people are walking up and down. There were quite a lot of buskers in the city with many different type of acts. With hangdrums, horns, guitar, glass ball and so on. Here are some streets where we played.

Map for busking in Lausanne

• Rue Saint-Francois
• Rue du Rotillon
• Rue de la Louvre

Lausanne was a great end for our Switzerland trip. Now we are heading towards France for the very first time! We hope that French people will like our music and the sun will be with us all the way to Spain. :)

Busking in Bern

Bern

Hitchhiking out of Luzern was impossible. It was raining for 2 days continously. The first day we stayed 4 hours in the cold rain than we gave up and went back to our host. The next day after standing for 2 hours in the cold rain, we decided to take a train to Bern. Freaking expencive! :( We spent more than 70 francs on the tickets. We were cold, wet and dissapointed a bit when we arrived to Bern but the city treated us well! :)

Miserably failed hitchhiking

Busking rules in Bern:
ckick here for the link! (it's in German). Basically it's legal to play on the street without a permit untill:

• you're not asking directly money from the people(if you put down a hat or instrument case on the ground it's okay)
• there are less than 2 people in the group
• you play once in a week

1. Performances allowed between 11.00 (on Saturday 10.00) and 21.00 (on Thursday 22.00) o' clock. 
2. You are not allowed to play on Sundays.
3. Amplifiers are not permitted.
4. You can play 30 minutes in one spot.

Our Experiance:

sun! :)

and more sun!

When we arrived on Saturday it was already too late to play or to do anything else and we were also in a bad mood because of the crapy hitchhiking experiance and the expensive train. But we were invited for a very delicious Swiss fondue so we had the chance to taste it for the very first time. We ate good and had a great evening :)

So the next day we were well rested. We had just one day to play and look a bit around because we wasted a lot of time trying to get a ride from Luzern to Bern. The weather was much better than before and we were enjoying it a lot! The city is very beautiful but the whole center was under renovation when we arrived. But under every house there are a lot of arches and now they look like a very long tunnel. We played there and it was quite okay.

Bern under construction

The police stopped us once, but they were very polite. They told us that they don't mind if we play on the street but some shops called because on Sunday it is forbidden to play in the whole city. Than they left us alone so we continued playing in a different spot. In the end of the day we still made 100 francs :)

I think it can be a very nice place to busk! Enjoy Switzerland! :)

Busking in Luzern

In Zürich we got lucky with the weather when we were hitchhiking to Luzern. In about an hour we got a straight ride so we were really happy. Though the next day it was a bit cloudy, cold and rainy the busking went well in the city and our mood didn't change. :)

Luzern

Rules in Luzern:
We got this link on Couch Surfing and it's very useful. Click here!
You don't need a special permit for playing on the street. You can play 4 days in each month (exept December) from Monday to Saturday after 17.00pm till 21.30pm. And you have to change your place every 30 minutes. I think it's quite fair for everyone.

Our experiance:
Luzern is a beautiful small city, siuated next to a lake and also very close to the Alps. We were really excited when we arrived and we went straight to the city center to do our usual sightseeing :) We were stunned by the view when we got to the lake. It's just amazing!

Blue sky, Alps and the lake

my little balloon :)

We knew the rules beforehand so we waited till 5pm and played a bit in one of the walking streets for half an hour. The money was really good (30 francs) but it started to rain so we couldn't play longer that day.
On Wednesday the weather got worse again, but in the afternoon it stopped raining so we could go and busk. :) We saw a lot of street musicians, mostly bands with different kind of instruments. I guess they were all students from the city, so in the begining it was hard to find a good spot. We played 2 hours and made more than a 100 francs! :) Switzerland and Swiss people have shown their generous side once again!

Unfortunately on Thursday there was a national holiday so we couldn't play but at least we had more time to do "tourist" stuff. :)

nice sunset

Best places for busking in Luzern:

where we played - marked as green

• in the old town center it's very good anywhere!
• Kapellgasse (played here)
• Weiggisgasse(played here)

The money was good, the city was great, the people were nice and the weather was "neah". :P It was really nice to be in Luzern but hitchhiking out of the city was horrible (impossible) and we got stuck in the rain with a "Bern" sign for 2 days... But that's another story. :)

Busking in Zürich

Zürich

Zürich is the first bigger city after Vienna that we visited this year. From the last trip we learned that smaller cities can be better for street music, but Zürich was on our way so we thought we should see how it is going in the biggest city in Switzerland.

Laws:
You don't need a special permit, but performances are banned in the city center. You are allowed to play just in the shore of the lake. Every 20 minutes you have to change your place.
click here for more details!

Map -where you can legally play

Our experiance:
We spent 3 days in Zürich. The first days it was raining all the time and it was really cold also! So we couldn't look around that much in the city as we usually do. The whole city seemed very grey and kinda boring. We got the information about the rules earlier so first we went to the lake but there was very few people walking around. So we went back to the center and played there for 40-50 minutes and made 70-80 francs(about 55 euros)! It was really good but we couldn't play longer because of the cold but we were happy.

Rain, rain and more rain...

On Sunday the weather was the same but even less people so it wasn't that great as before. We tried to play at Helmhaus with not too much luck so after an hour playing in the cold we just went home with 30 francs. Amazingly we didn't met any policeman for two days. And we were scared of the reactions of the shop owners also, but they were really kind and even payed us. And from a close by buliding some girls threw a paper plane with four francs on it out of the window. :)

paper plane

The next day the weather got better and it was really sunny, but next to the lake was still bad to busk. Also there were a lot of gipsy accordionists playing there... So we ended up playing in the center again which was good again but after 15 minutes the police came and told us that we are not allowed to play there. It seems like the police is active just on sunny days :P But the city looked very different in the sunshine! We missed the sun so much! We set next to the lake for a bit and enjoyed the blue sky. In the last weeks it was really cold and rainy and we even got snow showers in the very end of spring! :(

sun, sun, sun!!! :)

chillin' next to the lake

Zürich has shown us that it can be a really good city to busk, but if you play by the rules it's just not the right city to play. If you just stop for one or two days I think it's worth it to try it in the center till the police kicks you out, but probably the second time they won't be that kind and they might give you a fine.

Busking in St. Gallen

We heard a lot of good stories about Switzerland, but still we were a bit scared how the people will react and how strict are the rules in the country. St. Gallen gave a very good first impression :)

St Gallen

Rules:
You have to get a permission from the police. They give out 3 permissions per day which you have to pay 20 CHF for.

Vadianstrasse 57 9001 St. Gallen

map for busking

• you can get this permit for 2 days in a month
• you can play 20 minutes in one place than you have to go on another street but after 20 minutes you can go back to the same place
• a group can be up to 3 people
• no drums allowed
• you are not allowed to play inside the marked zone Multergasse, Marktgasse
• you are allowed to play on Barenplatz and Spisergasse on Thursay and Sunday
• Tape recorders and amplifiers are not allowed
• performances in the surroundings of the mainstation are fobidden

Our experiance:
We had just one day to play in St Gallen and we didn't have any swiss francs so we were quite desperate to play somewhere and make some money. We found a little passage next to a Post office and we played there for half an hour and we made 28 swiss francs(22.5 euros) so we were really happy but we couldn't play longer because of the cold. 
We went back an hour later but after two songs the police stopped us and told us about the permission. They were extremly kind. They gave us a map and a businness card where we can find the police station. We went there and we got the permit for 20 francs .
We played an hour and a half more and we made around 70 swiss francs(56 euros) so we were really satisfied. The people really apprechiate music in St Gallen :) Everybody's smiling at you even the police.

The rules are quite okay. Maybe 20 minutes is too short and 2 days in a month is not enough but if you're just passing by it's a really nice place to play!!!

best places:
I guess anywhere in the center is just fine :)

We had a nice time in St Gallen though the weather was really crapy and we spent just one day in the town. We're looking forward to seeing the rest of Switzerland!