Hi there,
Thank you for your interesting question you have sent us here! We have numerous ways in which we support Melbourne's artists.
Firstly, we only employ street artists and street experts, to be tour guides which offers these artists a chance to earn a generous wage with bonuses while dedicating most of their time to their art.
We do not ask the artists to provide any of the artworks specifically for the tour, in fact Doyle started the tours initially to help inform the public about the art when they realised a large amount of the general public did not have access to the information and background about the street art scene, and thus a lot of artists where not getting credit for their works. We often get artists asking us about the route our tour takes just so they can paint on the route to expose their artwork to interested visitors. We also have been involved in a number of street art projects such as Makatrons piece in Rutledge Lane and Heesco's commissioned pieces along the tour where the artists were paid handsome amounts for their contributions. If artist act professionally then there are many chances that we provide for them and there careers with.
We run the tours to not only educate the public about the street art movement and to help promote Melbourne's artists but also as a way to help support our studios where we offer the cheapest rental prices to artists in the CBD. The rent prices of the artist studios have not increased in 15 years despite the lease cost raising more than 200%... this is achieved from the contributions of the tours. At the studios where the tours end, artists also have an opportunity to sell their work afterwards and we do not take any commission as 100% of the money goes directly to the artist.
We work very hard to help support not only the artists at our studios and our artist tour guides, but the street art and fine art community on a wider scale by promoting their artwork and giving them full credit to anyone that is interested. I hope this answers your question!
All the best,
Melbourne Street Tours