Table set up, Netbook, make sure to have a friend around you to just be there with you, as the reality is you'd be trying to be a mobile bank, which to me makes for a super awesome target.   

I would do this near a police station or something that has traffic pass through, but is not necessarily the most high traffic area (I only worry about idiots who would have that mentality of 'ah.. mobile bank, let's rob him').     

Maybe the ideal solution would be yourself and two friends, those two could be buffers with information and helping explaining for anyone who would actually get to you for the final transaction.  Actually, this seems really optimal and far more trustworthy than one person with a sign.  Good luck, sounds like a fun day out.

Thanks for the good wishes.

I would mostly be on the street in the picture. It really is that busy during a regular day. Realistically it would be just me, alone, walking around with a sign in that same area for a few hours during the day. I'm not expecting to be pulling in $5,000 a day — I would be surprised if I even got up to $100 a day (turnover, not profit).

It would be best for a regular store owner to do this as a sideline, and I imagine in 6 months or a year or two years there will be plenty of stores doing this, just like you see (or used to) signs saying "faxes sent here, $1 a page" when it's not the guy's main business at all.

However, the parameters are as I said. Just me, alone, with a big sign in a busy pedestrian area in the UK, no sign of gangs anywhere!

I'm looking for info along the lines of don't use the regular bitcoin client but use six instawallet accounts, or whatever seems advisable to people who are much more familiar with what's available than I am.

That kind of made me think of how it would be interesting for someone to get together with a business owner in their area, obviously a tech related local store.  Offer the exchange services outside the store for them but do exchanges only for them specifically.   A tech related store owner at the least I think would have a better grasp of what would be taking place and may even help promote it

try to find as many inexpensive USB flash drives as possible.  find out how to load the client software onto the stick so all that people have to do is plug in the stick and the autorun.inf will load the bitcoin software for them. maybe it would even be possible to burn everything to a CD-R with funds preloaded.

Advertising the times you will be out on the street would help. It may be asking a lot to get cold sales of BTC from a general crowd. But if people knew you when you were around they may stop by just like they do for any merchant.
I think there is a service like this one; ( http://btcnearme.com/ ) for Europe and the UK. That might be of interest also.

And as mentioned, think security. A laptop is tempting enough, a laptop filled with bitcoins is a super target. In the U.S. we would just bring our guns. I know thats not an option for you .

Oh! I didn't check the legality of selling stuff on the street like this. It may be completely illegal without a street trader license or whatever, in which case I'm not going to do it cowboy-fashion.

Let me check. . . .

EDIT: OK, wouldn't work as I wanted. They don't allow traders to set up temporary pitches or sell on the move like that in that area. Pity.

Thanks anyway.

I think he means traders as in anyone selling something. Apples, trinkets, bitcoins, anything.

I did this recently at WWDC in SF with mixed success.  I do think it'll pickup momentum though. 

It was difficult because I needed either my laptop or way to remote to my laptop.  This gave rise to a idea for a new website that would facilitate this kind of transaction, and in general help to decentralize exchanges.  In a bitcoin world anyone can be an exchange.

Stay tuned for an announcement coming very soon.

Meanwhile you can do this type of transaction for a profit if you have access to an online exchange while your out. This is accomplished by having cash in your trading account, then when a person buys bitcoins from you you sell them at some percentage more then the current market price while at the same time buying those bitcoins back from the market at the current price.  If the current market price is $20.00, you sell 1 btc for $21 (5%, or whatever you chose).  You can go the other way as well as long as you alway hold a position on both sides of the market.

j