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Hi all, this is just a little update as we prepare for the new year.
Legal protection for busk.co
The least-interesting news is that we renewed our 10-year trademarks. This time we had to register in Europe and the UK separately, which cost about 800 GBP more than last time. Add all the European grants that The Busking Project is no longer eligible to apply for, and…well, thank you Brexit.
My family’s interactions with buskers
Over the holidays, my brother, his partner and their son took a walk down the Southbank. They came across Richard Filby, who picked my brother and nephew out of the crowd to be volunteers:
Note my brother’s back strength and willingness to endanger his child
On Tuesday this week my mum told me she’d passed Peter Thomas at St. Pancras with a beautiful voice, who was displaying one of our QR codes. She tipped and mentioned that I was her son, which was nice for both of them. Peter later sent me this:
Help me name my book!
Colwill & Peddle, the agency representing my book, has me listed as an “author” on their website. I’ve wanted to be an author for a couple of decades, so needless to say I’m very happy for this to be internet-official. We’ll start approaching publishers later this month.
I’ve been using How Buskers Changed the World as the book’s title (which I personally like), but the agent wants something punchier. As much of my book is about dismantling the prejudice people harbour about street performers, she’s been nudging me towards something like A Public Nuisance, or Beggars With a Gimmick, or similar.
So, if you have ideas on a good title for my book, or if you like any of the names above, do let me know. The topics I’m covering:
That buskers have had a tremendous impact on the world
That busking has huge benefits for cities, people, the arts and artists
That busking is even more important in the digital age
That modern forces might end busking as we know it
That there’s a lot of unjust prejudice about busking
That laws are informed by those prejudices
And that a better future is possible — if we only let it.
Can’t wait to hear your naming suggestions. “The Busking Project” itself was named by one of you, all the way back in 2010!!
Attempting to improve the law in Groningen in the Netherlands
A journalist in Groningen, in the Netherlands, asked for my input on a project he was doing, trying to get their council to change the law to make it possible to busk there. If you speak Dutch you can watch the video. Otherwise, here’s a post you can translate. Here are the bits where I was quoted:
When the current street music and event permit in Groningen is presented to Broad, he is startled: "You are allowed to stand in one spot for a maximum of fifteen minutes? Either the person who wrote this wanted to ban street music without calling it a ban, or they are an idiot. I see no third option.”
Broad goes a step further by saying that permits are contrary to democratic principles: “Whatever restrictions you impose, remember that you are taking away someone's freedom to express themselves in public.”
"We also believe that there should be something in return for regulation. If you say that an artist can stand in one spot for a maximum of an hour, or you implement auditions to monitor quality, or you introduce a scheduling system, what compensation do you offer for restricting freedom?"
New Single from Charlotte Campbell
Now some updates from the team. Charlotte Campbell, who sits on our board of directors, has released a new single, which you can listen to/buy here. Titled “Everybody’s Leaving London”, it’s about missing your friends as they move on from the city you will always call home.
[I just played for myself the opening riff of “Streets of London”, which Charlotte released ten years ago. I have “pathological intrusive musical imagery”, which is the inability to prevent melodies going round and around in my head. For the last 24+ hours a tune from K-Pop Demon Hunters has been lodged in there, so it was time for a change, and Charlotte’s Streets of London is another tune that gets stuck in my brain.]
Singapore’s changing legal landscape
RICE Magazine just wrote a beautiful, 2000 word write-up about Jonathan Goh, who also sits on our board. “The Busker Trying To Build a Circus Scene in Singapore” includes this fascinating passage:
Jonathan sheepishly tells me that firespinning wasn’t his first exposure to the performing arts. As a child, he was so hyperactive that his mother had tried to put him in a wushu class. Unfortunately, that did not work out.
“I was a very difficult child. The instructors said I was unteachable,” he says, shaking his head.
When he first accepted the fire dancers’ offer of mentorship, he thought it would be a distraction from trouble. But slowly, it began to give him a sense of purpose. Not only was he finding joy in performing, he also felt an urge to prove the naysayers wrong.
At school, the other kids call him gay simply because he was interested in the performing arts, he recalls. Some of his family members also doubted that he would actually find success in street performances.
“There was a lot of pain going through this journey. The support [from people around me] only came in when I started appearing on the news.”
He told me RICE did the interview back in October, but only released it now, once the National Arts Council (NAC) started promoting their new busking rule changes, which are a great example of the positive things that can happen when a government agency starts working with buskers, rather than against them:
Something I’ve never heard of before is that the NAC is now allowing buskers to ‘share’ slots by performing back-to-back. Not all buskers need 1hr for their shows, and yet council-run programs invariably only allow buskers to book identical timeslots — usually 1 or 2 hours at a time.
The NAC’s pilot program will allow two buskers whose shows take less time to swap back and forth over the course of an hour, sharing the booked time. This will enable more street performers to busk in a day, which is especially important on the biggest pitches.
Singapore has also increased the number of bookable pitches to 90 locations, making it the biggest busking program I’ve heard of (let me know if there’s another program with more). An acrobat quoted in this article said he earned 30% more last year because of larger spaces opening up for circle shows. A guzheng player said he’s earned 50% more over the last three years thanks to new pitches in places where he can reach his target audience — elderly people who appreciate traditional Chinese music.
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