Inner west busking festival on the horizon

While the once-thriving live music venues in the inner west continue to struggle, a program has been set up ensuring busking is a plausible alternative.

Steps are in place for the development of an inner west busking festival, after the ‘On the Spot’ Youth Week Busking Showcase takes place this week.

A joint initiative of Leichhardt and Annandale Business Chamber (LABC) and Leichhardt Council, the event will showcase young performers aged 12 to 25 years in various locations in Leichhardt.

And that is just the start.

“The vision of what it could possibly be could be quite enormous – it could be quite inspiring,” said LABC Executive Officer Anitra Morgana.

“We’ve got lots of musicians. One of the things that’s very typical of Leichhardt LGA residents is that we’re a very creative, artistic group of people. Lots of musicians live in the area.”

The LABC and Leichhardt Council have proposed a “three or four-year plan” working towards a busking festival. This week’s busking showcase is a pilot project.

“We thought let’s start with a very small, manageable, resource predictable pilot project,” said Ms Morgana. “We’ll use that then to develop procedures and protocols to test it to see whether it’s going to work.”

The LABC and Council have nominated ‘place-making’ as a crucial aspect of the planned revitalisation of the precinct.

“Busking is one piece of the jigsaw puzzle – it’s about community ownership of spaces,” said Ms Morgana.

Singer-songwriter Katy Brownless performed last Saturday at Rozelle Markets and Norton St Plaza. The Stanmore resident said busking was a valuable stepping stone before she stage performances.

“The thing with busking [is] you can reach a really wide audience,” she said.

“If you want to see live music, you’ve got to get into a licensed venue. I thought busking and this kind of Youth Week participation might be able to share my music with young people that can’t normally get into pubs.”

Ms Brownless will be performing alongside other Youth Week buskers at Leichhardt, Annandale and Lilyfield on Saturday.