The problems of particular event in question are partly due to pretty bad PR. Improving this may lead to the solution of the many issues highlighted and some direct input from the organisers here is welcome.

However, the larger issue remains.

It is fairly easy to have a policy which deals with festival vendors but it must be a different policy with one to deal with street performers, for this is not the same animal.

Vendors have a product to sell on conventional terms. They don't just turn up and present the product of their talents to potential customers simply in the hope that the customer may provide them with an amount on money of the customer's choosing. For they would soon run out of their wares........

But this is what street performers do and a policy which does not recognise this is a poor one which will threaten the long-term future of the event.