This may be slightly off topic for this forum, but since the main beneficiaries will be musicians, folk and otherwise, I thought I would ask here.

A service organization to which I belong recently co-sponsored a Celtic Music Festival. When looking for places to put up posters we noticed that there were no public places to post them, other than lamp-posts and utility poles and trees. We thought this a little unsightly, and cruel to trees, but we put them up and took them down when the festival was over. We noticed that a lot of groups and musicians and artists had posted in the same fashion, although they weren't so cool about taking the posters down when done. (The Greektown area of Detroit is a prime example of how messy things get when the posters never get taken down when the events are over.)

We are now thinking of approaching the Powers That Be with a plan to erect Poster Pillars in various conspicuous public places in the city -- along the main drag, in the main parks, etc. Our plan is that there would be free access to these, with complete freedom of speech, and no Bumbledom to approach for permission and a key to open a case. In fact we hope that each pillar would have painted on it an appropriate quotation from the Canadian constitution, a law case, or a famous author about the importance of freedom of speech and expression.

I know I have seen these poster pillars in various places across Canada and the US, but now that I am involved in this I am darned if I can find examples of design, use, costs, etc. I wonder if any of you music and arts types have them in your communities, and can educate me on the matter. I have done a web search but only turn up things like The Pillars of Hercules and Spice Girls Posters.

If any of you have access to a camera and a colour scanner, by all means feel free to e-mail me a picture of what is used in your community, to my e-mail address above. (Nothing over 5 MB please; my server will bounce it.)

Thanks all.