A Stopwatch On Buskers In Sydney (Naked City)

Judging by the number of men still sleeping rough in Tom Uren Place and Walla Mulla Park in Woolloomooloo, homelesness these days is not a major priority for the City Of Sydney Council. When it comes to cosmetics, out of sight out of mind, seems to work very well. A lot more visible and audible, are the buskers who regularly enliven the City – and it’s here that the Council have recently directed their priorities.

If you believe the bureaucrats, the CBD is currently being overrun by buskers – an onslaught of these pesky street performers vaguely reminiscent of that Goodies episode where the UK is threatened by a plague of Rolf Harrises.

As a result the number of actual busking spots has been greatly reduced with only six locations permitted on George Street between Circular Quay and Haymarket. The once popular Pitt Street Mall and Town Hall area have been cut to a solitary possie, with all buskers limited to an hour per day on a first-in basis.

You have to wonder just how this will work? Will buskers queue throughout the day to secure the limited positions? Could territorial disputes eventuate, as competing buskers scuffle for the designated spots? Guitars could turn into weapons and be smashed across competing heads. Will council inspectors lurk behind lamp posts, stopwatches in hand, to enforce the strict one-hour duration?

Just what brought this about is hard to say. Have shopkeepers, sick of hearing drawn out versions of Rocky Mountain High, voiced their annoyance? Have a relatively small number of buskers plying their trade impeded pedestrian traffic? Or is it simply a case of heavy-handed cultural engineering, one that stomps on urban spontaneity and anything not approved by a committee of Council killjoys.

The Council states its position as “strongly supporting buskers and the colour and vibrancy they bring to our city” whilst noting “the need to balance the entire community’s right to use our public spaces.” They go on to say the “busking code helps us balance both the needs of performers and the needs of others in the city – visitors, workers, businesses and residents.” In fairness, they do add that “despite the changes, the council is open to community feedback and is considering revising the rules to better accommodate buskers’ needs.” We will see!

Street performers have long been a fixture in Sydney going way back to the late 1800s. Perhaps the golden days were the 1960s and 70s, when new and exciting pop music boomed on the radio and was duplicated by the emerging street singers. You could walk through the Devonshire Street Tunnel at the time and hear a hit parade of top forty tunes from multiple buskers throughout.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that the Council actually considered regulating buskers and not until 1998 when licensing and the issuing of permits came into operation.

Increasing electrification with small amps enabled buskers to be better heard and later many introduced items such as CDs (with Council approval) to supplement their income. In today’s relatively cashless society a number of buskers now display QR codes which you can click on to make a donation.

If you are looking to become a street performer in the CBD you will need to apply for a busking permit from the Sydney Council with three different categories: low impact for artists such as singer guitarists, high impact for groups or loud instruments such as bagpipes and extended duration for human statues and groups needing more than two hours to perform. How the new time regulations will affect the latter, I’m not sure, but if you are planning to stage a street version of Verdi’s Aida on the Town Hall steps, forget it!

If you don’t have a permit you can be hit with a sizeable fine, likewise if you breach the conditions of that permit – like blowing the hell out of your bagpipes in an exhausting three-hour marathon of AC/DC hits. If Sydney buskers view the new regulations as bureaucracy gone mad, and many of them do, maybe it’s time to replicate the Goodies’ plague of Rolf Harrises.

A massive combined orchestra of singers, instrumentalists and yes bagpipe players, marching on the Council offices, could waken the bureaucrats from their administrative slumber with a rousing version of Public Enemy’s Fight The Power.

Meanwhile, down in Walla Mulla park, one of the regulars pulls out a rusty harmonica to entertain his friends. Whoops, he could be busking without a permit and up for a sizeable fine!

For a very positive view of busking in Sydney check out the short film by filmmaker Bernard Lau, Busking In Glory.