Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

When I first moved out to Vancouver back in the Fall of 1990 the income I made from the street shows I did down on Granville Island really did represent a significant percentage of my income. Back in those days the performers policed themselves. You showed up in the morning and took your place in the line up. It was a first come first serve sort of deal, so if you REALLY REALLY wanted the first show you got their at the crack of dawn… That honor typically went to Rick Lewis who would often get the first show in and as a result of his diligence the last show too…

Now to keep your place in the line-up you had to leave some of your props near the pitch and what ended up happening was that the venue, which is located in front of a retail business, ended up looking a bit like a bizarre garage sale. Though the retailer, was, is and hopefully will ever be, busker-friendly, having a pile of crap in front of the store didn’t appeal… After enough complaints the governing body of Granville Island established the Granville Island Busker’s Program via the Granville Island Cultural Society.

These days, the system is far more regulated (including a busking permit that needs to be purchased) than it ever was when I was working down on Granville Island on a regular basis and in fact, I was recently asked if I’d be willing to be on the jury committee for the SEGI (Summer Entertainment on Granville Island) program. Applicants either submit their promotional materials and video or perform a live audition and are programmed into the best performance times on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from mid-May – the end-ish of September.

Now… Since the permit system went into effect I’ve had mixed feelings about paying for the privilege of working a street pitch and some of these mixed feelings were echoed in response to the announcement of the 2008 SEGI Program that was made on Performers.net. Hard core street performing has always had an element of defying authority and creating something where there was nothing, and to have a street pitch this regulated feels a bit off to me. That being said, the pitch is a lot of fun to work, having pre-scheduled times that you know are waiting for you is a luxury that many street pitches around the world don’t have and if you commit to making this a regular staple of your performance diet, then the fee is more of an annoyance than anything else.

There is good and bad to just about any performance space be it on the Street, at a Corporate Event, or on a Cruise Ship Stage. The beauty of working on the Street and one of the things I still absolutely love about that environment is that it makes you sharp. If you’re not doing well, the audience simply walks away… If you can make it work on the Street you can make it work just about anywhere, and Granville Island is certainly one of the nicer street pitches in Canada.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Job Opportunities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.