I just learned a pretty good lesson.
Brian O'Connell (a.k.a. Circus Fergus) forwarded my newsletter about the Wexford amp ban to Lucy Medlycott, director of the Irish Street Arts Circus and Spectacle Network. She thanked Brian for the heads up, and said that ISACS had been part of the pushback that prevented Wexford's initial ban on busking in 2024. Now, she warned, new bye-laws were now being considered in Limerick.
With that in mind, ISACS is about to deliver a workshop with the local busking community in Limerick:
"...on the history, purpose and value of street arts, and with a view to building a local network that can work towards opening...communications between those who are responsible for the maintenance of civic space and those who inhabit it."
That sounds great, but what blew my mind was what she said happened in a meeting with Limerick city council. She gave a presentation to them "on the value of street performance", and the city's Arts Officer suggested that the city goes about supporting buskers in 2026.
That's the power of walking into meetings with an open mind and a positive message. Going in with a constructive and hopeful mindset could have much better results than preparing for a fight with a perceived opponent.
I put that insight to the test. When I learned that a BID in New Jersey was planning on installing a busker program, I wrote about it this way:
"Coincidentally, I just learned that a business association in Hackensack, NJ, is abusing its power as private managers of public space by offering artists the chance to do unpaid gigs."
After speaking to Lucy, however, I thought I'd try a more positive approach. So, I organised a call with John Peters, Executive director of the Main Street Business Alliance in Hackensack, to talk about their proposed busking program.
I tried to keep an open mind going in, and was rewarded: it sounded like they were keen to treat the artists well, had made a few decisions based on safety fears (sidewalks not being wide enough, for example), were trying to put together money to pay the artists for taking part, and were open to my suggestions that the artists self-organise. He also sounded positive that local musicians be brought in during the planning stage, instead of just being told what to do.
All in all, it was a great conversation, and one that wouldn't have happened if a) I hadn't talked to Lucy first, and b) John had read my earlier email. I doubt he'd have agreed to pick up the phone, if he'd seen me accusing him of abusing artists before we'd ever talked.
In the future, I'll try not to jump to conclusions too quickly. Lesson learned.
Closing my tabs
Every week I send out a bunch of stories I'm not featuring elsewhere: all the (English language) news from the world of busking in one place.
This week: Westminster is appealing against its own ban, The Roots, and an arrest within a busker’s circle
Westminster is appealing its own ban on busking in Leicester Square, like lions appealing to stop gazelles getting eaten by cats with large mouths.
That article includes the line, “Performers have been allowed in the square since a scheme was introduced in 2021 to regulate street entertainment,” which is wrong by at least 135 years, as buskers have been in LS since the 19th century, and possibly much earlier.
To its credit, the Evening Standard did create a video showing peoples’ reactions, and all the respondents are squarely on team busker.
Something else to be conscious of: I'm not sure of the result, but Edinburgh apparently just talked about updating their busking rules in a council meeting.
This next item is not important, but I really wanted to write this sentence: Casino Beef Week Days Machinery Busking Competition was won by Clarence Thompson.
I just read this Wikipedia article, which says that Grammy Award-winning band The Roots started off doing bucket drum/rapping street shows six years before releasing their first album.
In other celeb news, Max Mcknown got a “legion of supporters on TikTok” from his busking videos, and Jourdan Blue, a street performer from New Orleans, won a golden shower from Howie Mandel on America’s Got Talent (I assume that's the terminology AGT uses, I've not watched it before). A nice coincidence: at the beginning of that video you see a rollerblader, for just a second, who I watched perform in Berlin just last week.
Street performances took place at the Salt Lake City Buskerfest (May 30-31), Ashely for the Arts (Aug 7-9), Blackpool Comedy Festival (May 23-Jun 1), Ghettofest (Jun 7) and Cambridge Buskers Festival (June 7-8).
And finally, street performer Andryel finished his rendition of “We are the Champions” while cops tackled someone to the ground in the background of his show.
