| Covent Garden Street Performers Under Threat |
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| Written by Magical News |
| Thursday, 27 March 2008 16:39 |
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Covent Garden has always been the place in London to go if you’ve wanted to see street performers at their best. The site, that dates back to the 1600’s has always had a vast array of street performers, including magicians. The Covent Garden site even has it's own ‘Magicians Corner’, frequented by some of the biggest magical names in street performing, including the legendary Bob Read. In fact it's been referred to as Bob's Pitch in the past for that very reason. The current performance areas and agreements date from the late 1970’s and have worked well for both the site and the performers, however all this could change going forward. The present owners of the market, Capital and Counties, are looking to change the way performances are run within the Covent Garden area. Their main aim is to impose two things that would drastically effect street artistes of all types who work in the market.1) A 50% reduction in the total time that performers can use the spaces The idea of a street show, as street magicians like Gazzo (who is a past member of our Society) and others know, is that the true street performer does not perform to passing trade, they gather an audience, produce a show and collect or ‘hat’ at the end, implementing these changes could cost the performers between 25% and 50% of their total average income, making the venue unworkable for performers to make a living, which will undoubtedly lead to street performing in Convent Garden to die out. As a Society that feels very strongly about promoting the performance of magic to the public, this is quite worrying. The Street Performers Association have setup a myspace group to show support for the performers. You can also take a few moments to sign the online petitions, so please sign both the North Hall petition and the South Courtyard petition. You can also voice your disagreement of this by joining the mass email campaign. Just cut and paste the below sentences and send them to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . I am writing to express my opposition to the reducing of the street theatre performance times by 50% in The North Hall, and South Hall areas in Covent Garden.I urge you to reconsider this direct attack on the livelihood of the famous Covent Garden Street Performers and Classical Musicians. Please link to this article, email it on, and spread the word… |