Congrats on your ambition, and good luck. I sympathize -- I've been out of the public eye for about thirty years myself, and keep thinking about performing again but have not (yet) done so.

I put in about three years of seriously full-time busking back in 1970-72 and still like to talk about it. If and when I get back out there to perform again as an "older adult," however, I think I'll be more likely to show up at an open mike night than on a streetcorner, at least at first.

There have been *plenty* of other threads on this subject, some quite recent. I'm a bit surprised that the usual listing of "related threads" is not shown at the top of this page -- not yet, anyway. Maybe you could search the forum for the keyword "busking" to find some relevant discussions.

Currently active buskers Marion and alanabit have both offered plenty of good advice and insight in various threads throughout the past year or two. (I'm sure there are a few more names I should probably have included as well, but those two are the ones I immediately remember.) You'll see my name in those discussions more than once or twice, too -- you should probably take whatever I say with a grain of salt, since I *am* working from memory.